


It's Not a Side Effect of the Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love

by technicolorchl0rine



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-01 04:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5192741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technicolorchl0rine/pseuds/technicolorchl0rine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Bedussey!"</em><br/>I couldn't help it. It sounded like Pancho. It <em>couldn't</em> be Pancho. Pancho was dead, right?<br/>***<br/>When Pancho, unfairly attractive train wreck coke addict, shows up on Bedussey's porch, undeniably not dead, Bedussey can't help but let him stay. All of this is his fault, after all. But Pancho never seems to leave, and it's hard not to find yourself having feelings for the guy who steals your shirts and sleeps in your room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. between love and hate

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, major thanks to Hailey for being the first person to read this and being an overall peach. you know who you are. we love you.  
> this is co-authored by technicolortragedy and chl0rinekissed (not on ao3, but on wattpad. we moved a copy of this fic over here from wattpad bc a lot of people hate wattpad). this thing started out as a joke but it's kind of consumed our lives now.  
> if you haven't actually watched "Bedussey" before, you really should before you read this. not only will this fic not make any sense if you don't watch it, but you should also just watch it. it's a cinematic masterpiece.   
> we'd love your feedback! comments, questions, concerns? let us know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, major thanks to Hailey for being the first person to read this and being an overall peach. you know who you are. we love you.  
> this is co-authored by technicolortragedy and chl0rinekissed (not on ao3, but on wattpad. we moved a copy of this fic over here from wattpad bc a lot of people hate wattpad). this thing started out as a joke but it's kind of consumed our lives now.  
> if you haven't actually watched "Bedussey" before, you really should before you read this. not only will this fic not make any sense if you don't watch it, but you should also just watch it. it's a cinematic masterpiece.   
> we'd love your feedback! comments, questions, concerns? let us know.
> 
> edited as of 1/13/16

"Bad Twin? 's comin' home."

I didn't _want_ to miss him. I wasn't even sure why I did. It was unsettling, for sure, and I sighed, trying to ignore it. I figured it was best to head home. Pancho wasn't coming back, and I just was wasting time by standing around at the lakeshore, staring at his soggy clothes. Besides, Bad Twin was expecting me home. We had lunch plans, and I wanted time to knit.

Taking one final, forlorn look out at the lake, I turned on my heels and made my way back to the house. Scuffing my feet through the fallen leaves, I continued thinking about Pancho. I hated myself for not being able to get my mind off of him, but I couldn’t stop thinking it was my fault he was dead. If I’d just met him at the usual spot for coke instead of inviting him to my house, nothing would’ve happened. He’d pay, call me “pretty boy,” tease me about something stupid like he always did, and I’d drive off thinking about how much of a pain in the ass he was. But instead, he’d come to my god damned house wearing a wire. I’d been too high to think anything through, and ended up chasing him into the fucking lake. _God dammit._ I told myself I was only feeling so anxious and guilty about Pancho because I was coming down, but I wasn’t sure if that was the whole truth.

When I got home, Bad Twin was on the couch and half-clothed, as always. He nodded at me as I walked by and disappeared into my room. I dug the knitting set out from an old set of drawers and began clicking the needles, trying to drown out the strange feeling that still nagged at me. _Drowned._

The familiar click of the needles in my hands was comforting, but not enough to keep my mind off Pancho. It was still sinking in that he was dead, even though not many people that knew me ever got the chance to stick around for long. I guess that was mostly my fault, but it's also just the business I was in (the dealing, not the knitting). I'd grown fond of Pancho, though. I mean sure, he was a dick. He was wearing a fucking wire. But he had his charms. He could be a nice guy, and he wasn’t too bad to look at, either. But none of that mattered anymore. He was dead. He had drowned, and it was my fault. The sinking feeling returned, and the scarf got longer.

I switched the yarn to a light turquoise color. It was a matched well with the pink I’d chosen to start with, and reminded me of Pancho's shirt that he had been wearing earlier that day. Fuck, everything reminded me of him, and it just made me sadder. I couldn't even knit a fucking scarf without getting emotional. The scarf was getting long, and I was crying. _Great,_ I thought to myself, _you're gonna cry now? What're you gonna do if Bad Twin comes in and sees you like this? How do you explain this?_

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried for real. It was nice to think of myself as a collected person who couldn't give a fuck if they tried, but there I was, knitting a scarf and crying about some guy who fucking drowned and who I’d never see again. I don't know how much time passed before Bad Twin shouted my name from the living room.

_"Bedussey,"_ he called. "What the fuck are you doing? I thought we had lunch plans!"

I blinked and looked down at the scarf, now too long to be recognized by normal standards as a scarf and soggy from my embarrassing, out-of-character, bawling. I wiped my eyes and walked to the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. My face in the mirror was damp, embarrassing to look at. I made an attempt to pull myself together, and went to see if Bad Twin could be reasoned with.

He looked annoyed, which wasn’t unusual.

"Sorry man,” I said, proceeding with caution. “What do you wanna do for lunch? You gotta at least put a shirt on if we're going out."

He looked down, then at me, and sighed. "Shit,” he replied. “Well, I could go for a filet mignon, but I don't wanna put clothes on. So,” he paused, thinking for a second, “a sandwich sounds good."

I sighed, chewing on my bottom lip in frustration. I had been counting on going out to lunch to take my mind off everything, but Bad Twin was never in the mood to be reasoned with, and it seemed even more at the moment. I shuffled into the kitchen, scouring the fridge and pantry for sandwich supplies. "Uh, Bad Twin?" I started, "We don't have any bread."

For a second, the only sound was the television rambling. Then, he groaned, "What the _fuck?_ All I want is a fucking sandwich, and there's no fucking bread!"

I winced, not knowing why he was so irritable nor in the mood to deal with it. Slamming the fridge shut, I fixed my crooked jacket as I walked back into the living room to look for my wallet.

Bad Twin glanced over at me. "Where are you going?" he asked, boredom and disappointment dripping from his voice.

"I'm going to get the fucking bread so you can eat a sandwich," I muttered as I left the room. While I walked up the stairs and out the door to the driveway, I couldn’t help but think it would be nice to get out of the house and away from Bad Twin. He was always kind of an ass. If I just got the bread to make his stupid fucking sandwich, maybe he'd get off my ass and leave me alone.

I could’ve walked to the store, but Bad Twin was already so impatient that I drove. The grocery store wasn’t where I wanted to be, but I dragged myself through the aisles anyway, picking up a bag of Doritos and a loaf of Wonder Bread for my brother, along with a carton of one-percent milk.

I walked down the stairs with the bag of groceries in my hand, stopping to toss the car keys onto the pool table before going back to the living room where a hungry Bad Twin waited. Getting out of the house had helped me clear my mind and I was feeling better about everything that’d happened, but then, just my fucking luck, I noticed a pair of snow boots on the floor by the table. Bad Twin's favorite pair of red shoes was missing, and I felt a lump form in my throat. Besides the fact that I'd seen Pancho wear those boots time and time again, there's nobody else I knew, even in my business, who would wear those shoes in August.

I started tearing up (which seemed typical, considering the last couple of hours). With a couple blinks to clear the tears from my eyes, I decided that it was not the time to be crying and headed to the kitchen to make Bad Twin his goddamn sandwich.

I put the groceries away, wondering how I could’ve forgotten that there were already three cartons of milk in the fridge. I didn’t forget things often, but with everything that’d been going on, I wasn’t too surprised. Disappointed, I reminded myself I had a sandwich to make. Shaking my head, I tried to set my mind on the task at hand.

The baloney, mayonnaise, and French Roquefort cheese that Bad Twin liked on his sandwiches was a weird combination, but then again, he was a weird guy, a self-proclaimed slob who enjoyed the finer things in life. He’d always been like that, but became even more eccentric when he hit his twenties. It was exhausting.

Just as I was about to get the bread out of the plastic bag, I started crying again. God fucking dammit, I was sick of crying. It was a good thing Bad Twin had turned up the TV so loud, or he would have heard me. Leaning over the kitchen counter crying my eyes out wasn’t how I’d wanted my day to go at all, but there I was. I stood there for a few minutes before I wiped my eyes and managed to spread some mayonnaise on a piece of Wonder Bread.

I cut the sandwich into triangles just the way he liked it, and was about to walk into the living room to give it to him when there was a knock at the door. Considering my puffy red eyes and tear-stained clothes, I was in no state to get it and the day Bad Twin got up from the couch and answered the door would be the day I stopped selling cocaine, cut my hair, and got a girlfriend. I decided to ignore the knocking and brought Bad Twin his lunch.

He spent a second studying it and apparently decided I made it correctly. "Hey, Bedussey," he said around a mouthful of sandwich, shouting so he could be heard over the TV, "there's someone at the door."

I was glad he never looked up at me to talk so he didn't see what a blotchy mess my face was. "I know, man," I assured, leaning against the wall, "but I don't fucking care enough to-"

"Bedussey!" the person at the door shouted, "Come on man, are you, are you home, man?" They pounded at the door again, and a bang that sounded like they kicked it. _"Bedussey!"_

My heart lifted and sunk to the pit of my stomach.

_"Bedussey!"_

I couldn't help it. It sounded like Pancho. It _couldn't_ be Pancho. I was probably hallucinating. Pancho was dead, right? I’d seen all his clothes wash up on the lakeshore that very morning. Had the whole day been a hallucination? It didn't matter; I needed to answer the door. I wiped my eyes and reached for my sunglasses to cover up how red and puffy my eyes were, but remembered I lost them chasing after Pancho that morning. _Fuck, screw it,_ I thought. I walked up the stairs, opened the door, and there, right in front of my eyes, was Pancho.

I couldn't fucking believe it. I’d spent the whole day crying over this guy because I thought he was dead and it turned out he wasn't? Despite the fact that I was about to lose it, I was able to drawl out, _"Pancho._ I thought you were gone forever."

Pancho squinted at me, and I felt my stomach sink as I realized that he must’ve been able to tell what a mess I was. "Bedussey, dude, have you been crying or something?" he asked.

Of course, I was annoyed and indignant. He’d showed up on my porch after I spent the whole day thinking it was _my fault_ he’d drowned, and the first thing he did was point out I'd been crying? I wanted to think he was an asshole, but all I could think was that he was alive. I snorted in aggravation and leaned against the door frame. "No," I said, trying to seem as bored and uninterested as I wasn't, "I just-- wait. What the fuck, Pancho? Where the hell are your clothes? Are you _naked?"_

Yes. Pancho was indeed sporting an astonishing lack of clothing. I couldn't fucking believe this guy. He didn't even look apologetic or concerned. He just glanced down at himself and shrugged. "Yeah." He wasn't even wearing one of the wigs he (for some fucked-up reason) always put on.

I shut my eyes and took off my jacket, shoving it at him. I have no idea what the hell I was expecting when I went to answer the door, but it sure as hell wasn't naked Pancho. "Is it safe to look yet?" I asked, eyes still shut as to avoid seeing any more of what I’d already seen.

"You tell me, pretty boy."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Pancho, have you covered yourself up or not?"

Pancho sniffed and let out a sigh. "Yeah, I guess I'm partway decent."

I opened my eyes. To my relief, he had covered himself up. There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask, and I didn't know where to start. I ended up going with, "What the fuck is even going on here, man?"

Pancho stared at me for a few seconds.

It was getting clear he wasn't going to say anything unless I elaborated, so I had nothing left to do except go off at him. "What the fuck happened to you?" I started, and I couldn't stop. "Where the hell have you been, man? I thought you were dead! And what the hell happened to your clothes? Why are you even here, don't you have your own fucking place?"

Pancho stood there for a second, eyes wide, mouth agape. "Look man," he sniffed, "I don't even know how it happened. I thought I was dead, too," another sniff, "but I just washed up on the bank and all my fuckin' clothes are gone," a long sniff, followed by a short sigh, "And so I went home, to go get my clothes, y'know, but my girlfriend fuckin' kicked me out before I could even get anything." He looked down at his bare feet, sighed, sniffed again, and continued, "And so I came here, because that was the only place I could think of."

I took a moment to take it all in. The whole thing was pathetic, but I couldn't help feeling bad for him. I knew it was dumb, but I wanted him to stay. "So, your girlfriend kicked you out, and the only place you could think of to go to was your dealer's house? That's pretty sad, man. Kinda pathetic."

He sniffed again and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Yeah. I know."

"You're lucky I even told you where I live."

He sighed and rolled his eyes up at the sky. "Yeah, I fuckin' know."

I took a second to decide what to do. Pancho could've gotten me in serious trouble before with that wire. But then again, it was my fault he’d almost drowned. And my fault he was standing on the doorstep, covering his otherwise naked self with my jacket. If that wasn’t enough already, the fact that his drug dealer's house was the only place he could think to go hit me. So I sighed, combed a hand through my hair as he sniffed and sighed again, and opened the door for him. "God dammit Pancho," I muttered, knowing it was a stupid and unprofessional move to make, "you left your shoes here anyway. And you can't run around naked. You'll be sleeping on the fucking couch." I sighed, turned around, and walked back down the stairs.

Pancho followed me into the house. He seemed strangely enthusiastic about sleeping on the couch, but I wasn't about to ask him why. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pick up his boots from their previous place by the pool table and put them on. It was a strange sight; a naked dude wearing snow boots and covering himself with my jacket. Nothing about the situation was normal, of course, but I didn't ever it would come to what it had.

Bad Twin was still sitting on the couch, entranced in some rom-com. I had to stand in front of the TV pull Pancho over next to me to get his attention.

"Bedussey, man, what the fuck I'm just trying to watch _Love Actually--"_

I cut him off, not in the mood for whatever he had to say. "Pancho's gonna sleep on the couch," I said, immediately regretting it.

Bad Twin looked up at me. He lowered his sunglasses so I could see his eyes, and groaned. "Bedussey, yo, bro, what the fuck. That's my couch." He was, in a word, angry.

In an attempt to patch things up before they went from bad to worse, I said, "I'm sorry man, I thought he could sleep here, like, his girlfriend kicked him out and he has no clothes--"

Bad Twin interrupted me. "I don't fuckin' care, man. He can stay here, but not on my couch," he stated. "Who the fuck is this, anyway? Your boyfriend?"

"I, uhh, uh," I stuttered, and I could feel my face get hot. "No. No, this is Pancho, he's, um," I had to pause. What the hell even was my relationship with Pancho? "He's just a friend," I said. I shook it off and walked into my room, Pancho following me like a lost puppy.

With a sigh, I gestured around at my room. "I guess you'll be staying here. I can't imagine Bad Twin will let you use his room either."

Pancho sniffed as he looked around. "Who would've thunk," he mumbled, "Sharin' a bedroom with pretty boy." He grinned at me and made a face like he was trying to wink. Again, I felt that embarrassing rush of heat to my face, but the moment called for covering my face with my hands anyway. When I looked up again, Pancho was sitting on the edge of the bed, patting the mattress. "This is nice. Very comfortable."

I couldn't fucking believe it. Pancho was getting his goddamn ass all over my brand-new comforter. "What the fuck?" I shouted, cringing. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Pancho jumped up, stuttering. "Ah! I'm, I'm sorry, I don't know man, I just--"

"Did you forget you were naked, or something?"

Pancho blinked. "Actually," he glanced down at himself again. "Yes."

"You were sleeping on the floor anyway, but now I have to wash my comforter. Fuck, Pancho, what the hell..." I trailed off, too shocked and embarrassed to keep raging for long. I ripped the comforter off the bed and was about to walk out of the room, but Pancho was still there and I didn’t trust him to be left alone. Eyes closed, I turned in his direction and said, "Just don't sit on anything else, and try not to break anything." I couldn't see whether or not he had acknowledged my request, but I went to go stuff the comforter in the laundry bag anyway.

The laundry was in Bad Twin's room, which was a complete mess. Half-empty bags of Doritos and other assorted trash littered the floor, and the carpet was stained orange with cheese dust. Where there weren't Doritos, there were piles of wrinkled clothes. The whole room was a disaster, except for the pristine pink walls and his bed. It was a queen size, a four-poster with a canopy and curtains. A red velvet comforter covered the bed, with four pillows with perfect white satin cases arranged neatly at the top. That was a different kind of disaster in itself. I had no idea where the hell he got the money for all his shit. I shoved the soiled comforter into the laundry hamper and returned to my room.

Pancho was still there, but he had at least covered himself up again. I wasn't happy he was staying with me. It was sloppy, dangerous, stupid. But I couldn't ask him to leave now, and besides, it was only temporary. He had nowhere else to go, and needed some serious help in general, which wasn't my responsibility. I couldn't stop myself from caring, though, and I couldn't quite put my finger on why.


	2. sleep alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edited as of 1/30/16

By the time dinner rolled around, Pancho had made himself comfortable. We found a sleeping bag in my closet and rolled it out for him in my room, and he was borrowing some of my clothes even though they weren't his size. He seemed to be doing okay, all things considered. Bad Twin ordered a pizza for dinner. He made up for his habit of doing nothing at all by ordering food sometimes.

If Pancho hadn’t been around, I would’ve done some knitting while we waited for the pizza, but I couldn’t knit while he was in the house. Not even Bad Twin knew about my knitting, so Pancho sure as hell wouldn’t be finding out about it. All I could do was sit in the living room with Pancho while Bad Twin watched some obnoxious movie. Even though it had only been a couple of hours, I could tell Pancho would be messing up my knitting schedule. Having him around in general was disrupting routine, and I couldn’t decide if it was annoying and awkward or if having someone around who wasn’t my brother was almost refreshing. I’d never been around Pancho for more than a few minutes of me selling him coke before, but it always seemed like maybe, if the situation was different, I would’ve wanted to spend time with him.

I glanced over at Pancho, who seemed preoccupied with picking loose threads out from his (my) shirt. It was surprising how well he was holding up, considering I’d chased him into a lake and his girlfriend dumped him in the same day. Although I felt bad for making him sleep on the ground, there was no way in hell we’d ever share a bed. As my thoughts turned towards the night, I realized I had left my fucking nightlight in. Along with the secrecy of my knitting, nobody could know I was afraid of the dark. Especially not Pancho. I snuck back into my bedroom, unplugged the nightlight from the wall, and stuck it in the drawer of my bedside table. If Pancho found out about my fucking _nightlight,_ he’d never let me hear the end of it. I was a grown man using a nightlight, and as ridiculous and stupid as it was, there was nothing I could do.

As soon as I returned to the living room, pizza knocked on the door. I went to the door, paid the greasy-looking teenage who delivered it, and peeked inside the box to see what Bad Twin had ordered. I crinkled my nose at the sight of his usual mushrooms, pineapple, and anchovies. It was disgusting. I regretted not asking him to order something else for me, but it was too late for that. Sighing, I carried the pizza back to the kitchen and called for Pancho to come get a slice. Bad Twin ate the whole thing himself if nobody else snagged a slice.

Pancho sauntered into the kitchen wearing a sleazy expression, like "pizza" was lingo for something else. Sometimes it seemed like it was his life goal to turn anything he could into an innuendo. After putting a couple slices on his plate, he scowled, "Man, what the hell is even on this?"

"Mushrooms, pineapple, and anchovies," I explained, "Bad Twin's favorite. Sorry, man."

He took a bite, chewing as the disgusted look on his face turned thoughtful. He sniffed, eyed the pizza again, and then looked up at me, the smiling. "Dude," he said as he wiped a greasy hand on his leg, eyes wide with pleasant surprise, "Bedussey. This pizza is fucking amazing."

He shoved his piece at me, and I batted it away, even the thought of those anchovies coming anywhere near my mouth made my stomach churn.

"No, I'm serious. Try it." He tried to push the pizza into my face again.

"Pancho!" I hissed as I backed away, "I don't want any of your pizza! I've had this shit before." When he seemed disappointed, I sighed and offered him my toppings. He nodded, having just taken another bite, and picked the pineapple, anchovies, and mushrooms off of my slices and set them on his plate. He devoured the pizza, even with extra toppings.

My pizza was terrible, as it always was when I forgot to tell Bad Twin to order edible food. The cheese had that weird soggy texture it gets after all the toppings are picked off, and it was tinted with the taste of mushrooms, pineapple, and anchovies. I couldn't just not eat it; I was starved. I'd skipped lunch, and hadn't really had breakfast either, unless a cereal bar and cocaine could be counted as breakfast. Pancho was making bedroom eyes at Bad Twin's pizza box, the poor guy. There was no way Bad Twin would spare him even half a slice. I would have offered to get him something, but there wasn’t much in the fridge. I needed to go for a grocery run, and what we did have to eat, Bad Twin had claimed as his own. That only reminded me that living with my weird-ass brother was annoying as fuck, and I needed to move out and get my own place. I was only living with him because my when my ex broke up with me (which I still tried not to think about too much), he’d kicked me out and I’d had nowhere else to go. Bad Twin let me move in with him, and both of us thought it would be a temporary solution until I found my own place. But that had been a couple of years ago, and I’d never gotten around to finding an apartment or house of my own.

For a while, we all sat watching another one of Bad Twin's rom-coms until he fell asleep on top of the remote to an infomercial. I got up after a few minutes to change into my pajamas and brush my teeth, making an attempt to wash the leftover taste of that shit pizza from my mouth with extra toothpaste. For a brief second, I considered going in and saying goodnight to Pancho, but he was probably still staring at the TV. I went straight to my room and sat up in bed, reviewing everything that happened that day in my head. God, it was all so fucked up. When I invited Pancho to my house to buy that day instead of meeting up at the usual spot, I didn't think it would end up like it did.

Pancho came in and leaned on the door frame, yawning. "'s been one hell of a day," he sighed, rubbing his eyes.

I smirked. "Damn right."

Pancho sniffed, and crossed the room to where his sleeping bag was. He sat there and wriggled around trying to get into it for a minute before he got the zipper to slide open and let him in. After a lot of rustling around, tossing and turning, he seemed to have gotten comfortable. He laid there staring up at the ceiling, and I’d been doing pretty much the same thing. I couldn't knit before bed like I usually did, so there was nothing else to do.

After about ten minutes of sitting and staring in silence, I was getting tired. I reached over to turn the lamp off, and that's when it happened.

Pancho sat up in his sleeping bag, leaned in towards me as I was about to flick the switch, put a hand on my cheek, and planted a kiss right on my mouth.

I paused for a second; my eyes closed, eyebrows raised in shock, painfully aware of the feeling of his lips on mine. I almost leaned in before I came to my senses and pulled away. "What the fuck are you doing, man?" Bad Twin would be mad if I woke him up, but I was pissed, with little regard for how loud I might have been. "What the fuck was that?!"

Pancho seemed to be at a loss for words. "I, uh, sorry man," he stuttered, "I dunno. Sorry. Sorry."

I leaned over to flick the lamp off, keeping an eye on Pancho to make sure he didn’t try to kiss me again, and managed to make it without any interruptions. "Um, " I took a long pause, trying to figure out what the hell I could say to the guy who I’d almost killed, who was now sleeping in my room and had just kissed me. I settled on, "Goodnight man.”

Closing my eyes, I pressed my thumb and forefinger against my eyelids and tried to distract myself from everything that was going on. The unfamiliar darkness of the room made the situation even worse. Even though I was exhausted, I was still unable to sleep. I tossed and turned, the lack of my comforter making my chilly and even more aggravated.

Pancho cleared his throat, and I could hear him roll over in his sleeping bag. I still couldn't believe the little shit kissed me. Kissing your drug dealer who almost killed you earlier that day just isn't something you do. What got me, though, was the look on his face after I pulled away. He looked so surprised, but at himself, and just as confused as I was. As much as I wanted to fall asleep and forget about everything, the combination of being cold, still hungry, and annoyed with everything that had happened wouldn't let me. The dark was bothering me, too. I knew if I kept my eyes open long enough, they would adjust, but I didn't want to wait for that. I would’ve started crying again had I not exhausted my tears earlier.

Down on the ground, Pancho was breathing heavily, snoring so quietly it would sooner put you to sleep instead of keep you up. _Focus on that,_ I thought, _Just focus on his snoring instead of the dark._ It took me a minute to realize that I had told myself to fucking focus on Pancho. But to my annoyance, listening to him took my mind off how dark it was beyond my eyelids. He mumbled something in his sleep, and there was a sound like he had flinched. The smile was on my face before I could reason that Pancho was a real dick who I shouldn't be smiling at.

I wanted to sleep, but my only hope of that was focusing on Pancho's soft snoring, and that only made me think of Pancho. If I was a complete dumbass, I would’ve been thinking about how it felt when he kissed me, how soft his lips were. And if I didn't have a brain at all, I would've been thinking about how his snoring was endearing and even kind of cute. But I was a smart guy, and all I was doing was focusing on his breathing and trying to get some goddamn rest. I don't remember when, but I drifted off at some point.

Not long after falling asleep, I woke up to Pancho's cold hands shaking my arm, his voice mumbling something I couldn't quite make out through the blurriness of being half-awake. "Bedussey," he almost whispered to me, "Bedussey, wake up man, please."

"Wha--” I propped myself up using my elbows and turned to face him. “What do you want, Pancho," I said, emotionless through my sleep-slurred speech.

"I had a dream, man, and I can't even remember it now, but it doesn't matter." Pancho sniffed. "I just, I fuckin' woke up and realized that I could've died and I don't have a fucking house anymore. I don't even have a fucking girlfriend, or any clothes. I'm a fucking mess, and here I am bothering you about all this shit…" he trailed off, then added, "Never mind, man. Shit. Sorry. Just," he sniffed again, "just go back to sleep."

Although more than anything I wanted to go back to sleep, I noticed he was tearing up. Considering how much crying I'd been doing, it felt wrong to just leave him. I sighed, rubbing at my eyes. "Nah. Nah, it's okay man," I mumbled, still waking up. "What's up?"

Next thing I knew, he was climbing into bed with me, wrapping the sheets around himself with another sniff and a sigh. I sighed myself, but he was wearing clothes this time and we were just talking, so I couldn't think of a good reason to make him leave. He shrugged. "It's just. It's just," his voice trembled a bit and I reached out and patted his shoulder awkwardly. I no idea how to comfort him, and I felt bad. It was my fault we were in this mess.

Pancho sniffed and tried again. "It's just, I don't have anything anymore. Fuck, I barely had my own life earlier. Bedussey, man, I almost fuckin' died and now I can't stop thinking about it. I'm sorry, man. It's my fault." He was crying, just a little, but it made me feel even worse.

"Hey, uh," I struggled for the right things to say, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Um, Pancho. It's, ah, gonna be okay. I think. Don't. Don't worry."

"I'm sorry," he mumbled again, wiping at his eyes and sniffling. "I should go I guess."

"No!" I assured, quicker than I thought I would or should respond. I don't know why, but I didn't like the idea of him wandering all by himself. "I, um. That's not safe man. Just, uh, stay here until we, uh, you can figure stuff out," I fumbled for words, putting my hand on his forearm.

He looked at me, still teary-eyed. "Are, are you sure, man? I don't want to be bothering you, or anything, I just--"

"No, no, it's fine. It's totally, um, it's all good," I reassured him.

"You really sure?" His eyes were wide, and he sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

"Yeah, of course." I couldn't stop myself from wanting him to be okay. "I, uh, I care about what happens to you, I guess. Y'know." _God fucking dammit._ Everything was just so awkward.

He looked surprised. "Thanks, man," he said, a hint of a question in his voice. "I care about you, too, I guess."

As if things couldn't have gotten any more awkward than they had started with. The whole day had gone from bad to worse, and I was sick of it. I needed to get some sleep. "Yeah. Um. I care about you, and I think we both just need some sleep. So I think that's what we should do, is sleep together."

Pancho raised an eyebrow and leaned away from me. "What the fuck, man? I mean, uh," he trailed off, laughing through his words.

It took me a couple of seconds for me to realize what I’d said. "Shit! No, fuck, um, no, I meant, like, go to sleep at the same time. Now. Because I'm tired. That's, uh, that's what I meant." Jesus Christ, I was just making everything worse. Pancho was being a real dick, still laughing to himself. "Alright Bedussey," he drawled. "Whatever you say, man. Goodnight, then."

I collapsed back onto my bed, covering my face with my hands. Pancho was still lying next to me, but I fell asleep before I got the chance to shove him off.

***

When I woke up, the space next to me was warm, like there was someone sleeping next to me. I rolled over to see what the source of heat was, only to find myself face to face with Pancho. There he was, eyes closed, snoring softly, curled up next to me in my bed, a little too close for comfort. Why the hell was Pancho in my bed? Did I get high the night before? Good god, had I slept with Pancho? His eyelashes fluttered and he scooted closer to me in his sleep, smiling like he was having a good dream. Needless to say, I panicked and pushed him off my bed.

He hit the ground with a surprised yelp and sat up, rubbing his head and sniffing. "What the fuck, Bedussey?" he complained, voice caught somewhere between annoyed and tired, "What was," he paused to yawn, "what was that for?"

"You're in my bed," I pointed out, still trying to process the fact. "Pancho. You were in my bed."

He shrugged and pulled himself back up, flopping onto my pillows with a sigh. "So?" His voice was thick, his hair sticking up in all directions and flattened on one side.

"Why were you in my bed?" To be honest, I was scared for an answer. When he took a moment to answer, I pushed him off again. "Pancho! Why the fuck were you in my bed?"

"You don't remember?" He sighed as he got back into my bed, this time wrapping himself in the sheets. "How can you not remember last night?"

That really scared me. I couldn't remember anything. "Pancho, just explain to me what the hell happened and why you fell asleep in my bed."

"Ugh, okay, fine." He rolled over to face me. "I kissed you and neither of us fuckin' know why, and you got super pissed at me, and then we fell asleep and I woke you up because I had a nightmare or some shit and you told me you cared about me."

"So," I began, "We didn't sleep together?" It was starting to come back, but everything was still fuzzy.

He snickered. "No, but you suggested it."

"I-- what?"

"Eh, never mind." He brushed it off, smirking to himself.

I was still curious, but still too groggy to question him further. A few of the memories from the previous night were returning, but I still couldn't piece it all together. Not feeling like pressing Pancho for more information, I threw the sheets off and got up. Bad Twin had slept on the couch, as per usual, and was sitting there watching a daytime soap. It was hard to believe he ever moved. Had I not seen him take off in his tuxedo from time to time I would’ve assumed all he ever did was sit on the couch, watch his shitty movies and TV, and eat his weird food. I didn’t know where he went in his tux, and, to be honest, I was scared to ask.

My socks slipped on the linoleum of the kitchen floor, which, I noticed, was begging to be cleaned. I’d have to clean later; I had eggs to make that morning. When I opened the refrigerator door, I noticed Pancho out of the corner of my eye. “How many eggs do you want?” I asked him.

“Just one is good." He rubbed his eyes, still in the process of waking up. "Thanks," he added.

While I made the eggs, Pancho asked me a lot of questions about how I slept in my socks. He seemed concerned about it, telling me he’d never met a guy who slept in his socks before as I grated cheddar to put into the eggs. Pancho watched me cook with a look of intense concentration, like if he looked away from the pan, they would all be ruined. He was weird. That was all there was to it.

"Yo, Bedussey," Bad Twin called from the living room, "Are the eggs ready yet?"

I sighed, being just then in the process of dividing them onto plates. "Almost," I shouted back.

"You didn't use my good cheese, did you?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. "No, Bad Twin, I used the cheddar that was on sale."

Pancho leaned on the counter, twirling a fork between his fingers and watching me with that same focused look. It was a little unsettling, and I told him so, scowling as I asked him, "Pancho. What's going on?"

He blinked, as if waking up from a trance. "Oh, sorry man, it's just fun to watch you cook."

I narrowed my eyes at him, raising an eyebrow. His hair still had that crazy bed head look, which was oddly endearing. He was being weird, which was normal, but he seemed especially fixated on me. As far as I knew, that was weird, even for him. I brushed it off and set the pan in the sink.

I passed Pancho his plate and went to go give Bad Twin his eggs. He accepted them, mumbling a "thanks" to me, not bothering to take his eyes off what appeared to be General Hospital. I rolled my eyes and headed back to the kitchen to eat breakfast with Pancho, but when I got back he’d already finished.

"Man, what the hell do you put in these? Best fuckin' eggs I've ever had," he said, eyes wide and the corner of his mouth turning up into a smile as he spoke.

"Just eggs, cheese, and a little milk, actually. But thanks, ah…" I didn't finish. If he hadn't kissed me and slept in my bed the night before, I would've added a "sugar" onto the end of that. But he had, and I didn't. I sat down to eat my eggs.

"In-fuckin'-credible," he wondered aloud as he stared at my plate, "Not only does pretty boy sell coke and sleep in his socks, he cooks the best eggs in the world."

I rolled my eyes in a sort of flattered exasperation and kept eating, trying to keep my mind on the important things, like the day ahead and what the hell we were going to do with Pancho, and definitely not him ruffling his hair to unflatten it on the one side in my peripheral. "Why'd you even wear those stupid-ass wigs anyway?" I asked as I cleared our plates. It had occurred to me to ask why he hid his hair under a cheap dollar-store wig every time I saw him when his real hair wasn’t bad at all.

Pancho sat back in his chair, chewing on his thumbnail. He seemed perfectly relaxed and at home in our kitchen, like he had been staying with us for years. "I don't know," he admitted, shrugging and giving me a confused smile. "They're just cool, I guess. And they hide your identity pretty well. So." He shrugged again with a sniff. "Also, if you don't want to deal with your actual hair, they're the best to have around."

Of all of the things I could think one of those wigs could be used for, hiding your identity wasn’t one of them. They weren't what most would consider "cool," either. I sighed a little and shook my head to myself as I finished up washing the plates, reminding myself that Pancho's weird-ass wigs weren't the important thing in this situation.

When I turned to face him, I realized he was still wearing my clothes. They were too big on him, and he hadn't even bothered to roll the sleeves up on the shirt so they hung down over his hands. Something had to be done about that. "Look, man, I don't know how long you're gonna need to stay here, but we need to get you some clothes. You can't keep wearing mine. They're too big and they look ridiculous."

Pancho nodded his head and sniffed. "Alright, fair enough. We gonna do some kinda makeover then?"

"Wha-- No, no, we're just gonna go shopping and get you some new clothes, so I can have mine back."

"Yeah, yeah, alright." Pancho raised his eyebrows, grinning like we weren't going shopping, but doing something else instead. "Let's go shopping."

I bit my lip, wondering why the hell he always did that. He was Pancho, so I wouldn’t put it past him just to fuck with my head for fun. Shaking my head, I thought for a second about where I could take him shopping. I hadn't been to the mall in ages, but that was probably the easiest place to go. "Right. Anyway. I'm gonna get dressed, so we can go. Don't break anything, and don't make Bad Twin mad."


	3. loyalties among thieves

As I changed into normal clothes, I just couldn't seem to keep my mind off of the dark-haired interloper currently in the house, probably watching General Hospital with Bad Twin in the living room. But the thing is, everything reminded me of Pancho and I couldn't shake it. He wasn't even fucking fake-dead anymore, so I didn't really have a reason for him to be constantly on my mind. The lamp reminded me of when he kissed me last night, and I cringed. Why the hell did he do that? It was so out of the blue. And it was completely ridiculous that I wasn't able to stop thinking about it when all I wanted to do was forget. Then, this morning, he just seemed so targeted on me, and it was just the weirdest thing. He really did need new clothes though; Pancho wearing mine like it was completely normal and not even bothering to roll up the sleeves so his hands were always half-hidden brought a confusing and unsolicited flush to my cheeks. I put on a pair of jeans and a button-up, tugging on my loafers with a tired sigh. The sleep I had gotten hadn't been very good and I was left just feeling kind of detached from everything, which I hated.

When I went back into the living room, Pancho and Bad Twin were, of course, glued to the TV. I couldn't tell what was happening on the screen, but somebody was crying really loudly. Bad Twin wiped at his eyes under his sunglasses and Pancho was just enamored with whatever was going on. I cleared my throat to get his attention, and it took a couple seconds, but he finally pulled his gaze away from the TV and settled on me.

"Are you ready to go?" I asked, making sure I had my wallet with me.

Pancho nodded, climbing to his feet and stretching. He was wearing his snow boots again, so he must have put them on while I was changing. I gave up on getting Bad Twin's attention and instead lead Pancho out towards the front door, snagging the car keys from the pool table on the way out.

***

The mall hadn't really changed much since the last time I'd been, which I couldn't even really remember. I did most of my shopping online so that I could avoid it, actually. But Pancho needed new clothes, and soon, so there wasn't really any way for me to get out of this. "So, uh, where do you wanna go? Like, Macy's or something?" I asked. I liked to think of myself as a fairly well-dressed guy, but I had no idea where to go in here.

"Uhh…" Pancho trailed off absentmindedly, and I wondered if he was actually thinking about where he wanted to go shopping or just spacing out. Snapping back to attention, he said, "Yeah, sure, Macy's."

We made our way into the store. Pancho wanted to smell the perfume that they were spraying on people, but I crinkled my nose and insisted we keep moving. The menswear department was mostly empty except for us; a sea of muted blues, grays, blacks, and plaid. Pancho looked through one of the racks as I just kind of stood there awkwardly. "Maybe we should make some kind of a list of things we need for now, so that we're not here for hours?" I suggested. I wanted to get out as soon as possible, and at the rate he was going at, that would be at least two hours later.

"Okay," he agreed, sniffing a little, "yeah, sure. Well, first of all, I need some new plaid shorts."

"Really? The cargo ones?"

"Yeah, man, those were my favorite fucking shorts. I don't have 'em now, and I need a new pair." He looked a little down about the fact that he'd lost them, which was concerning because they were quite possibly the ugliest shorts I'd ever seen.

"Look, I agreed to take you shopping, and that's all, but I can't let you wear those in my house. They're awful. Let's get you some fucking jeans, or at least just regular cargo shorts."

Pancho argued with me about it a little longer, then reluctantly agreed that, at least for now, he wouldn't be getting any new plaid shorts.

When he had picked out some things, I sat down on the couch outside of the dressing rooms while he went to try stuff on. After a couple of minutes, he came out of the dressing rooms wearing black skinny jeans and attempting to do some kind of fashion model walk.

"Bedussey, dude, check out how great my ass looks in these jeans," he remarked, all too nonchalantly.

I raised my eyebrows and looked at him skeptically. At his face, not his ass. I wasn't in the mood to put up with his weird, almost flirty attempts at conversation with me, and I definitely didn't want to sit through a one-model fashion show. "Oh my fucking god, I'm not gonna look at your ass," I sighed exasperatedly, "Just try the fucking clothes on so we can go."

He put a hand on his hip and shifted his weight to one foot, pouting his bottom lip out as to keep up the fashion model routine, and returned to the dressing room with his hips swaying as he walked.

We ended up getting three t-shirts, a salmon colored button up (I suggested a gray one, but he insisted), a flannel, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of shorts, three pairs of shoes (sneakers, red Vans slip-ons, and slides), and some socks and underwear. I paid for the clothes, and we left for lunch.

I don't know what I had in mind when I asked Pancho what he wanted for lunch. I guess I was just used to Bad Twin wanting filet mignon and shrimp cocktails or a trademarked Bad Twin Sandwich, but Pancho had something else in mind. We were pulling out of the mall parking lot, and it was driving me fucking insane because everyone was driving slowly and stopping and going irregularly. Pancho looked irritated too, and I was barely able to stop him from rolling down the window and flipping off the other drivers on multiple occasions. But when I asked him what he wanted to eat, he instantly brightened up a bit and shouted, "McDonald's! McDonald's all the fuckin' way, man!" He slammed his hand down on the dashboard like he was making an important proclamation.

I glanced at him quickly before turning my attention back to the busy road. He was completely serious, perhaps the most serious I'd seen him so far. "Uh," I began uncertainly, not too sure what to think, "Pancho? What the hell. McDonald's? You sure?"

He nodded. "All the fuckin' way."

I sighed, but it's not like I had much room to disagree with his food of choice. I mean, it's cheap, it's fast, and it was on the way home. "Okay. Sure. Fine. We'll go to McDonald's."

Pancho, now given something to think about besides the annoying-ass drivers we were surrounded by, grinned and turned on the radio. I always kept the car radio on one of the local classical stations, but Pancho made a face when Chopin came through the speakers. "You listen to this shit?" Pancho asked dubiously, already flipping through different stations.

"Yeah," I replied, indignant that he was insulting the music, "What do you mean by that? Classical music is relaxing."

Pancho rolled his eyes as he finally paused on a rap station. "This is good music," he announced, bobbing his head to the beat, "Sex. Drugs. Rapping. This is good."

"Ugh, are you kidding me? This is just noise, man," I protested, changing it back to the classical station.

Pancho groaned, and started flipping through the stations again. He finally settled on an oldies station that was playing "Ooh Child." I hummed along quietly as I navigated the road. Pancho sat there in the front seat staring out the window until the chorus, which he half sang, half shouted loudly.

When we pulled into the drive-thru, I hesitantly ordered a Caesar salad. "What do you want?" I asked Pancho.

"Aw, man, what _don't_ I want?" he exclaimed, eyes wide. He leaned over me to scan the menu board. Turning to me, he said, dead serious, "I want all of it."

"No, come on, man. Just pick something."

"Uhh, fine, um," he paused for a second, "just french fries then."

"Really? That's all?" I was surprised, since he was asking for the whole menu just seconds ago.

"Yep."

"Alright." I turned to the speaker box and asked for a large order of french fries. It would be $6.38 at the window.

I paid for the food and passed the bag to Pancho. He got his fries out and dug in. I wish I didn't notice, but it was impossible not to; he was an obnoxiously loud chewer. I tried to ignore it at first, but I couldn't. "Could you, um…" I trailed off, trying to figure out what the least rude way to say it was. He was looking at me expectantly for me to finish my sentence. I decided it was impossible to go about this nicely. "Oh my fucking god, could you chew a little quieter? I'm trying to drive, here, man."

Pancho took a second to swallow his bite, then exclaimed indignantly, "What the fuck do you mean?! I'm not chewing any louder than any other person would!"

I sighed. It was difficult to argue with Pancho and follow the rules of the road at the same time. "Just… just try to keep your mouth shut."

He sniffed and went back to eating his fries with a sot of dejected and irritated look on his face. The good news was, he was chewing quieter now, even if it was still loud. I wondered why I hadn't noticed it last night when we were eating the pizza. The thought crossed my mind that he had been being extra careful last night, just a little more conscious of what he was doing, to, I don't know, get Bad Twin and me to like him a little more or accept him sooner. Bad Twin was a lost cause because liking people wasn't really his thing; toleration was really the best you could get from him. Me though, I don't know. Pancho annoyed the shit outta me. But he was one of my better cocaine clients, and I figured it wouldn't be too hard to learn to live with him. The thing was, it was impossible to stay mad at him for too long. I mean, he kisses you and you're furious and shocked and then not too much later he's waking up because he's a mess and he had a nightmare and you're still shocked but you just want him to feel okay.

I snapped out of my thoughts when a car honked at me and I realized I had sat through an entire green light. Pancho was looking at me, holding a french fry up to his smirking lips. "Whatcha thinkin' about that's making you miss a green light, pretty boy?" The smirk was audible in his voice.

"Shut the fu--" I was going to finish, but then some asshole decided it was an acceptable time to pass in front of me. "Oh, _fuck you,_ buddy!" I shouted, even though I knew the other driver couldn't hear me. 

Pancho snorted and almost choked on his fry.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful. Bad Twin was, of course, sitting on the couch when we got home. He was re-watching Miss Congeniality. He was pretty pissed when he found out we'd gotten McDonald's without him, but after an outburst of yelling, he consoled himself with the fact that he'd made himself a sandwich for lunch. I left Pancho and Bad Twin in the living room and went to collapse on my bed. I was exhausted. Who knows what from, all I'd done was go shopping and get McDonald's. I wasn't tired enough to take a nap, but I could've really gone for some knitting. Maybe if I was careful enough…

I peeked out the door to see if they were sufficiently distracted. Bad Twin was as on-the-edge-of-his-seat as he could be for a guy lying down on the couch, and Pancho was sitting on the floor near him, criss-cross-applesauce style, with his eyes fixed on the screen. I cautiously made the judgment that they were focused enough on whatever Gracie Hart was doing onscreen that I could do some knitting. I resumed working on the mittens I had started before all the events of the previous day. With the knitting needles in my hands and the sound of the TV in the background coming though the thin walls of the house, everything kind of felt normal again. I could forget about all the shit that been going on the last couple days and finally relax; but I had to be careful not to lapse completely back into my comfort zone, because any minute Bad Twin or even Pancho could come in and see the bundles of yarn and half-finished mittens in my hands. And if either of them found out, I don't think I would be able to live with myself. I clicked the needles back and forth and watched the yarn loop itself into a pair of mittens. I lulled myself into the familiar pattern, finally able to take my mind off the events of the previous night until I was startled by footsteps approaching my door. I hurriedly stashed away the yarn and needles in my bedside table drawer just as Pancho opened the door.

He waltzed in casually, like it was his own room, and started to lean against the frame. Then he suddenly stood upright, eyebrows pulled together, like he had just realized something. There was a weird sense of tension in the room. What the hell was going on here? I side-eyed him, and cleared my throat expectantly because he hadn't said a word since he walked in.

"Uh. Sorry, uh. I didn't… mean to walk in on anything, or--"

What the fuck was he talking about? Why was he being so weird? "What?"

"You," he looked like he was about to make a gesture with his hand, "um-"

"What?! Oh my god, no-" _Jesus fucking Christ._

"Shit! No, sorry-"

"You're sick, man.” _Oh my fucking god._

"I'm just gonna, um." He turned towards the doorway and started out.

"Yeah. Um."

"Okay."

"Okay, yeah. Um. Okay."

He edged back out into the hallway, closing the door behind him after giving me one more weird look. "Sorry. Uh. Sorry again. Don't, ah, don't let me stop you. Or," he cleared his throat and sniffed a couple times, "or anything." I saw him wince before he fully closed the door.

Once he was gone, I sighed and fell back onto my bed, pressing my hands to my face and trying to fully come to terms with what just happened. I was just doin' my thing, knitting the mittens like I needed to, and then Pancho comes in and now, fuck, Pancho thought I was jacking off. That's exactly what I needed. And it's not like I could even explain that that's not what I'd been doing, because then he might find out about the knitting. Slowly, I sat up again, pinching the bridge of my nose as I tried to figure out exactly how to go about this. Nobody would probably come in my room now, so I could finish the mittens, but if I spent too much time in there with the door closed, then Pancho would feel like his suspicions had been confirmed. That little shit was just fucking everything up. But I couldn't make him leave, not if I'd told him I cared about him, which was true. I reluctantly decided to leave my room. The mittens would have to wait. I wandered out into the living room, avoiding Pancho's gaze (which I could practically feel following me as I roamed into the kitchen). I was out of my room, and I had nowhere to go. I couldn't knit, I didn't schedule clients on Sundays, we didn't need anything from the store, and I had no friends. I mean, besides Pancho and Bad Twin, and they don't even really count. I leaned against the counter, studying the tile pattern. It was incredibly uninteresting, dirty and all shades of beiges and tans. I drummed my fingers on the rim of the kitchen sink, mesmerized by a few seconds by the metallic tapping sound, until I got bored again. I needed to get out, to get some fresh air and clear my head.

"I'm going for a walk," I mentioned to Pancho and Bad Twin as I crossed the living room to grab my coat. I got a few nondescript grunts in response, and headed out.

It was unusually cool for the end of August, somewhere in the mid-seventies. There was a barely-there breeze rustling the leaves in the trees, and the sky was a pale blue color. My thoughts wandered from the scenery to the past ten minutes or so, and I cringed. As if things weren't already awkward enough, now they were even worse. _Stupid Pancho,_ I thought, _walking into my room. Having a dirty mind. Calling me 'pretty boy.' Ruining my life. Stupid, terrible, gorgeou-_ I cut my own train of thought short. No. Obviously not. Of course not. I kicked up a few leaves and shoved my hands into my pockets. No. He was _not_ gorgeous in any way. Pancho was a train wreck who liked cocaine, terrible plaid cargo shorts, and weird pizza. Besides, underneath it all, he was just another client. Client, temporary roommate, that's really as far as this whole thing should go. Despite the fact that he called me "pretty boy" and I used to call him "sugar,” the most we could ever be is possibly friends. But then for some reason I couldn't shake the image of him in the kitchen earlier that morning, his hair still ruffled from sleep and the sleeves of my shirt hanging over his hands.

I scuffed my shoes over the pavement, looking up at the trees to see the edges of the leaves had already starting turning yellow. It was almost fall; September started in only a few days. The thought occurred to me that I had work the next day, and Pancho did not. _Pancho._ What was I going to do with him? He couldn't get a job, he was a cocaine addict without a permanent living situation. And besides, something told me he didn't really have any qualifying work skills. I would have to talk to him when I got home, which I didn't plan on being any time soon. When I got home, I would have to deal with dinner, and Bad Twin, and all the awkwardness between Pancho and me. I kicked up another couple of leaves and continued down the street.

If he was gonna stay with us for a while, he would have to get a job. The thought of Pancho in a job was sort of amusing and despite it all, I snickered to myself a bit. Thinking of him alone all day with Bad Twin was equally interesting; they seemed perfectly happy sitting together watching romcoms, even if Bad Twin wasn't really that in to sharing his Doritos. My brother wasn't really going anywhere, but I wanted to help Pancho get back on his feet. It wouldn't be easy, but the sooner we fixed him up, the sooner he could get a hold back on his life, the sooner I would be able to stop thinking about him so much.


	4. ways to go

I had packed up my things and braced myself to spring out of my chair and get out long before the clock read four o' clock. The accounting firm I worked at was technically a side job, a way to make some extra money and make the five grand going into my bank account every month seem a little less suspicious, but it was incredibly boring. Nonetheless, it was necessary, and only nine to four every week day. I mumbled a few "have a nice weekend's to coworkers as I made my way out, not bothering to add names onto the end of the statement. I hadn't bothered to learn them, and they were probably all typical, one-syllable, simple names that I wouldn't be able to keep straight anyway.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat when I got into the car. I was exhausted and hungry, and not in the mood to get out of the car or make a detour on the way home. I wanted something greasy, salty, and terrible. I wanted McDonald's. This was all Pancho's fault, as most things seemed to be recently. Pancho and his weird enthusiasm over McDonald's had me craving food that probably wasn't even food. I started the car, pulled out of the parking lot, and turned onto the busy street that lead to Mickey D's.

I pulled into the drive-thru, focusing in on the violin melody of the symphony that was playing on the radio while I waited for the car in front of me to finish ordering.

When I pulled up to the speaker box, a strangely familiar voice greeted me, asking, "Hi, welcome to McDonald's, may I take your order?"

"Pancho?"

There was a pause, and then the muffled voice coming from the speaker box spoke again, "Pretty boy?"

I froze. "Uh," was all I could get out. What the hell. In the week that he'd been staying with us, there was literally no avoiding Pancho. I couldn't even go to McDonald's without running into him. That was almost surprising as the fact that he had a job.

Pancho, on the other hand, laughed. "Hey, man! Hey, hey, how are you? How was work?"

"I-" I was stuttering like crazy, and a glance at my hands gripping the steering wheel proved that I was shaking. Why was he working there? _How_ was he working there? How didn't I know? This guy just kept fucking with my mind and I was getting tired with it. "You work here?" I finally managed to get out.

There was a short pause, and I could just picture him nodding before realizing we couldn't see each other. "Yep. Got hired... Tuesday I think? Anyway," for a second I thought he was going to get back to business and take my order; but then again, this was Pancho, and of course he just said, "Y'know, the weirdest thing happened on the way to work today, yeah," he sniffed, "And, ah, so there was this cat? There was a cat, this cat just hangin' out in the middle of the street, and I'm like 'Hey, cat!' and then it started walking towards me, and then I realized that this cat, it's actually a raccoon! There's just a fuckin' raccoon hangin' out in the middle of the street in the middle of the day and it's just walkin' towards me, y'know?"

I sighed. Not only was Pancho seemingly inescapable, he also still couldn't fucking shut up, even when he was working at McDonald's. _Especially_ when he was working at McDonald's. "Look, man, can't we just talk about this when you get home?" 

"But I haven't seen you all day!" he protested.

"Come on, you're gonna get yourself fired, just take my order and I'll see you in like, an hour."

Pancho sniffed, sighed, and groaned, "Yeah, alright. Fine. What can I get for you today," he paused for effect, "sir?" I could hear the smirk in his voice through the speaker. He was probably trying to wink again, to no avail.

I took advantage of the fact that he couldn't see me and rolled my eyes. "Small fry and a small diet Coke, please."

A sound came through the speaker like he was unsuccessfully trying to hold back laughter. "Haha, you're getting Coke-"

"Yeah, yeah, how much?"

"Two twenty-nine at the window." I could hear the laugh in his voice, and there were a couple things I wouldn't let myself think. I groaned and leaned back against my seat, pinching the bridge of my nose. It felt like I was getting a headache. I lifted my foot off the brake and pulled up to the window. Pancho grinned at me through the glass when he saw me pull up. The headset was slipping off his head and he made a face and pushed it back into place, adjusting it a little so it would stay on. It seemed like he was in an especially good mood today. I couldn't figure out why, and it was kind of bothering me. Maybe he was just happy it was Friday? Maybe he liked his job? The thought crossed my mind that he was glad to see me, but that was stupid. He saw me every day. When he opened the window and took the five I handed him, pressing a few buttons with a look of concentration, he kept talking. "So, I never got to finish my story, but y'know, the cat turns out to be this fuckin' raccoon! And, man, this is one mean-ass lookin' raccoon."

I sighed a bit as I watched him press buttons, but decided it would be easier to indulge him than to argue. Besides, the raccoon had now become mildly interesting.

"So this god damn raccoon is like, walking toward me," he rambled on, pausing to sniff, "and I'm thinking, 'oh man, this is fuckin' sick as shit' but also 'oh shit, it's a fucking raccoon'. So I'm like, trying to get away, but I also still wanna see it…"

He was still talking, but my mind drifted elsewhere. I kept focusing and un-focusing on his funny little facial expressions as he talked; he was so animated. Either he was really bad at making change and shouldn't have a job working a register, or he was taking a long time on purpose so he could tell his story about the raccoon in the middle of the road, which I was supposed to be listening to.

"…takes the french fries and-" he stopped mid-sentence, realizing I was spacing out. "Hey! Are you even listening?"

He seemed so upset about the fact that I hadn't been paying attention that I decided it was better just to lie. "What? Yeah, yeah of course."

"Okay, cool. So, he takes the french fries and-"

"Hey, um, maybe you could finish telling me at home or something? There's people behind me and they look kinda pissed," I said. This was both true and an excuse to get home and knit before Pancho finished work. "Not that I'm not interested, because I am, but…"

Pancho sighed and handed me my change. "Yeah, sure, alright." He looked a little dejected, but I couldn't just stay there and listen to him talk for another ten minutes. He'd get fired, the other cars would get mad, and the whole thing would be a disaster. "Have a nice drive home, see you soon!"

I waved a quick goodbye to him before I pulled up to the second window. I got my fries from the next window, and as the teenage girl snapping her bubblegum handed me the bag and got the cup out for the drink, she asked, "Was that Pancho taking your money?" When I sighed and nodded, she frowned. "Sorry. He's been telling, like, everyone that story today. Heard it, like, five times." The soda machine made a weird noise and she pounded her fist on it. As she waited for the machine to start working again, she continued talking about Pancho. "Yeah. He's, like, such a lonely little guy."

I blinked. "Lonely?" It's not a word I would have thought to use to describe him based off the week he'd been living with us and in past meetings dedicated to me selling him cocaine.

She nodded thoughtfully, twirling a straw between her fingers. I imagined the cars behind me hated me right now, but there wasn't a lot I could do. "I don't know, there's just, like, something about him that's just kinda, like, sad all the time. He looked pretty excited to be talkin' to you, though. Usually he, like, only gets that excited when he talks about the dudes he's living with." She continued and frowned at the soda machine, which still making choking noises, and punched it again. This time, a slow trickle of Diet Coke started to pour into the paper cup. The girl tucked a strand up hair under her McDonald's visor and snapped her gum again. "This machine is, like, worse than my ex," she muttered before raising her voice again to talk to me, "Sorry this is taking so long." I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. I just wanted to get home. But then, of _course_ Pancho was working at McDonald's, and of _course_ the soda machine was jammed and of _course_ this employee wouldn't stop talking about Pancho either.

Finally, the paper cup was filled all the way with soda and the girl put a lid on it and handed it to me with the straw she had been twirling. She apologized for it taking so long, and wished me an obviously practiced "have a nice day, sir.”

I drove off, sighing to myself again. It was a sigh-heavy week. Work was a hassle, business was slow, Bad Twin was being extra high-maintenance, and Pancho was still there.  _Pancho._ What the fuck was I supposed to do about him? He couldn't live with me forever. I was going to have to talk to him about that at some point, but I definitely didn't have the energy for it tonight. At least he had a job now, right? Given what I had observed and what the girl had told me, he wasn't very good at it, but still, a bad job is better than none at all, right? For only having worked there for a few days, McDonald's girl seemed to have observed a lot about Pancho. Apparently he was sad, talked about Bad Twin and me at work, and only got excited when talking to us or about us. This meant that Pancho thought about me away from when he saw me. There was a part of me, a stupid, irrational part that wanted to assign meaning to to that, but I got the better of myself. I pushed the thought out of my mind and turned left, continuing on my route home.

Thankfully, the roads were pretty clear, and soon I was pulling into our driveway. After I turned off the car, I sat there for a moment, just thinking. Pancho had a job? Why the hell hadn't he told me? Alright, well, that aside, now I couldn't steer my thoughts away from the fact that he talked about us a lot. At first, it was almost, I don't know, touching in a way, but then I started to worry that he'd told somebody or accidentally hinted at my coke dealings. Hopefully, he didn't. Pancho was an idiot, but he wasn't stupid. But then I realized he could easily leak some information "on accident.” He had been wearing that fucking wire, after all. It would also explain why he wasn’t quick to tell me that he was working. My gut twisted as I thought of the possibilities. Pancho wouldn't do that, would he? Not after everything? I started to feel a little sick thinking of all the things that could happen, and the tiny, half-eaten bag of fries didn't seem very appealing anymore. Fuck this. I just needed to get inside, knit, and calm myself down.

I got out of the car, anxiously fidgeting with the keys as I locked it. Bad Twin was in his usual spot when I walked by. I nodded hello to him and he lifted his chin in response. My head was in a state of exhaustion from the long week of work, but thinking of what could have happened if Pancho had let anything slip was keeping me alert, jumpy, and almost nauseous. I kicked off my shoes and glanced at Pancho's sleeping bag as I grabbed my knitting things from my bedside drawer. It was barely slept in, since he kept on ending up in my bed somehow. When I asked him why, he just shrugged tiredly or made up some excuse. _Damn him and his carelessness and sleeping in my bed and fucking everything up and his stupid pretty fa-- fuck!_ I let my thoughts wander as I completed a pair of socks and cut them off. _God, no._ Why did that keep happening? Pancho was potentially ruining my entire life, and I reminded myself once again that he was a train wreck coke addict that just happened to be living with me.

Usually knitting helped me take my mind off of everything, but even that wasn't helping right now. The pair of socks had been tiny, an expecting mother's request for her soon-to-be-baby. It was kind of funny how my businesses attracted such different people. I mean, on one hand you have loving, excited mothers who want tiny knitted socks for the babies, and on the other hand you have people lusting over cocaine, like Pancho. I wondered how he was doing with that, anyway. He was so fucking hooked when he came over last week that I couldn't imagine things were exactly peachy for him, having been off it for almost a whole week. Unless, in addition to possibly running his mouth at work, he'd been sneaking blow from my stash. I wouldn't put it past him, but I hadn't noticed anything missing when I met up with a client yesterday, and if he had taken anything, it would've been noticeable. I knew his habits, once he had some, he had to get more, and a lot. This was to my advantage monetarily, but it sure had fucked him up.

I came to the conclusion that he hadn't done anything. Maybe he'd decided to really fix his life up and turn himself around, and he was just handling withdrawals oddly well. Come to think of it, I didn't really know how he was handling withdrawals. I hadn't really seen him that much over the week. Monday morning I had thought of staying home during the day to keep an eye on him, but I needed to work to make up for lost knitting money. I hoped he was doing alright, I guess. Apparently, according to what I'd said in the middle of the night last week, I cared about him. And now I couldn't even stop fucking thinking about him, not even while I was knitting.

What I really needed to do was get some sleep. If I was asleep, I wouldn't have to be thinking about him. The past few nights had been restless, and it seemed like I was exhausted all the time. Pancho always fell asleep first even though he came in later after turning off the TV, and would groggily wish me goodnight before crawling into his sleeping bag on the ground. And then his snoring- god fucking damn it all, his snoring- would usually be the thing that finally found a way to lull me to sleep. I hated it. It really annoyed me that that was the only thing that helped me to not be awake, but it was something that worked besides the nightlight that I couldn't use, and I was never in hell going to admit it, but his snoring was kind of comforting in a way I couldn't describe. But then, when I woke up he was in my bed. I don't know when it happened, or how he managed to burrow underneath the recently-cleaned covers without waking me up, or why the fuck he did it, but every morning for the past week when I woke up the bed was warmer than it used to be and Pancho would be fast asleep next to me, too close for comfort. I'd grown used to it, not by choice. I didn't push him off the bed anymore like I did the first morning I found him in my bed. Although I probably should if I wanted him to start sleeping on his own, I couldn't quite bring myself to. He always looked so peaceful, face relaxed, eyelids fluttering slightly, hair always sticking up in some new, weird way. I had, unfortunately, gotten used to waking up with Pancho lying in bed next to me.

As if that wasn't enough already, I'd gotten used to making breakfast for three instead of two, eating dinner with someone else, and having someone else around the house. Pancho was getting uncomfortably comfortable, and it was fucking with my head. I still wanted to help him out, that hadn't changed, but I didn't like how normal everything felt. God, this was Pancho. Pancho who called me "pretty boy" upon first meeting me, who never failed to be a few quarters short when he was buying, who gave me a "Congratulations On Your Wedding" card when we met up around my birthday one time. I couldn't be getting comfortable around him. The thought made me cringe. It struck me again that I needed to talk to him about his plans for the future. It would probably be unreasonable and rude of me to bring it up tonight. He hadn't even been staying with us a week, and besides, I didn't even know how I would bring it up. "Hey, Pancho, when are you gonna get out of my house and get your life together?" No; I needed some time to think about this. I'd have to be careful about what I said. Just telling him what was on my mind would end up disastrously, considering my brain kept wanting me to think I had _feelings_ for him or some shit like that. God dammit, I was being so stupid. Last week should have never even happened.

"Yo! Bedussey!" Bad Twin shouted from the living room, and for a brief second I could pretend like things were back to normal again, that Bad Twin was the only other person in the house and I didn't have anything extra to worry about.

I labeled the socks and hid them in my bedside table drawer with the rest of my knitting stuff, ready for when the client called me back and found a time for me to get them to her. I took a deep breath. _It's just you and Bad Twin,_ I told myself, _Pancho doesn't live with you. He's an asshole but thankfully you only see him when you're selling him snow. Bad Twin needs more Doritos. You'd better go to the store again. We're out of milk, too._ I made sure all my knitting was put away, and left my room to go see what the hell my brother wanted. He had just turned off the TV, which struck me as a little odd, but it wasn't like he never did that. It happened from time to time. "Hey, Bad Twin," I greeted, sitting on the arm of the couch. He scowled at me, but didn't say anything. "What's up?"

The scowl slowly disappeared from his face, but I could feel him glaring at me from behind his sunglasses. "I'm so fuckin' hungry," he complained. "When's Pancho getting home?"

I sighed. The fact that Pancho was living with me was unavoidable and it was driving me crazy. My head ached. "I dunno, man. About an hour, maybe? Did you know he was working at McDonald's?"

Bad Twin gave me a puzzled look from under his shades. "Yeah," he said with a hint of question in his voice, "you didn't?"

I groaned and ran my hands through my hair. "Just… I'm gonna go to the store. Is there anything you need?"

"Nah," he drawled, "just the usual."

I grabbed the keys and headed out. Why the fuck had Pancho told Bad Twin, but not me? It felt like something weird was going on. It could, of course, just be Pancho's usual weirdness, but it irked me that he hadn't told me. We were sharing a room (and a bed, but that was a separate issue), how could he have just not told me?

I had grabbed the car keys, but realized I wasn't really in the mood to deal with traffic anymore today. The store was within walking distance, so I started down the street. The past week had brought with it a significant drop in temperature. Even though it was supposed to heat up again in a few days, fall was definitely present in the air. I walked a little faster to stay warm, running through the list of thing we needed at the store. Bad Twin needed some more sandwich supplies and Doritos, and it always seemed like we needed milk. Pancho wanted me to make scrambled eggs again tomorrow, so we needed eggs, too. And toothpaste. For some reason, he used gobs and gobs of toothpaste every time he brushed his teeth. It didn't make any sense, and it meant we ran out of toothpaste quickly, but if I was to think of a bright side to it, he always smelled kind of minty.

The store wasn't too busy, but the people that were there were so damn annoying it was almost worse than it being crowded. There were people who had to walk incredibly slowly right in front of me, people having obnoxiously loud conversations on their cell phones, and some guy in front of me in line arguing with the cashier about coupons. The whole excursion to the store was just a long, exasperated sigh, and had done nothing to help clear my head. Pancho had worked himself so well into my life that I couldn't do anything without thinking of him, and somehow he'd done it in under a week. I paid for my things and walked out of the store, shaking my head to myself as I went. I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I almost didn't see Pancho across the street from me.  _Almost._

He was walking with head down, scuffing his feet and lifting his head to look around anxiously every now and them. Even though I could only see him from a distance, he looked like a mess. He looked like a cocaine addict dealing with withdrawals.

Somehow he didn't see me, but if he was half as out of it and unfocused as he looked, I wouldn't have been surprised. Every so often he'd stop and rub his neck like it was aching and look up at the sky for a couple seconds, then shake his head like he was trying to clear it and keep walking. And the whole time, he just looked painfully sad. I guess that's what McDonald's girl had been talking about. I shifted the grocery bag from arm to arm uncomfortably. He still hadn't noticed me. I didn't like seeing him like this; anxious and sad and, fuck, he was lonely. This was Pancho, even if he was annoying and a cocaine addict, he was supposed to be happy. Without much thought, like how I'd been doing most things lately, I crossed the street over to him. "Pancho!" I called out to him. Judging by the state he was in, if I snuck up behind him or something, he would've jumped.

He turned around and stopped walking, obviously surprised to see me. His eyes were wider than it seemed like they should have been, even if he was surprised. "Bedussey? What are you doing here?"

I rubbed the back of my neck with my hand and ruffled my hair. "I, uh, I was just out getting groceries," I gestured to the bag in my hand, "you walk home?"

"Oh. Yeah, I don't have a car, so…" he trailed off, looking around nervously again. We started walking again.

"Man, why the fuck didn't you tell me you had a job? You even told Bad Twin, but not me? I could've given you rides."

He sighed and muttered something under his breath that I couldn't quite make out. "I wanted to surprise you with my paycheck, man! But it doesn't matter now, I mean, you already know and I got fired anyway, so…" He left the end of his sentence hanging again as he looked up at the sky wistfully.

"Oh, hey, that sucks. I'm sorry." I awkwardly put my hand on his shoulder in a mostly failed attempt to console him. "Are you, uh, are you doing okay?"

He sniffed a bit and smiled at me, but it was kind of wobbly and that made everything even worse. It always hurts when you can tell somebody is trying to smile for you. "Hey, don't worry about me. I'm, y'know, fine."

I frowned. It didn't really seem like he was fine. Withdrawals will fuck you up, and he was a mess. I tried not to linger on the thought that he had wanted to surprise me with his paycheck, and focus on the fact that he needed some help. "Yeah, no you're not, man. Come on. Withdrawals are hell. Isn't there, like," I struggled to force the words out of my mouth, "isn't there, uh, something I can do to, ah, y'know, help?" Empathy is such a dick. As much as I wanted to go back to moderately caring about him, there was this part of me that refused to be happy until Pancho was. He looked down at his feet and kicked a piece of gravel across the sidewalk. "Nah, nah, it's fine. Thanks, though." The corner of his mouth lifted into a sort of half-smile, which I could tell was forced again.

"Okay. Well, let me know if I can help, or anything. Y'know." I would've been frustrated with myself for caring so much, but I was too busy being sad about Pancho. He obviously needed help, but he wouldn't let me. It was my fault he was in this mess, anyway. I had gotten him hooked in the first place, and it was coming back to bite me in the ass now. We walked the rest of the way home in silence, aside from Pancho's sniffling.

Pancho sat himself down on the floor next to Bad Twin's couch when we got home, and I went back to my room. I paced back and forth a few times before collapsing onto my bed. I couldn't try to knit, that had been disastrous the last time what with Pancho walking in and assuming things. I stared up at the ceiling and mulled over what Pancho had said walking home. Now that I knew he was going through withdrawals, it cleared up why he was always sleeping in my bed. He probably fell asleep for a little bit, woke up in the middle of the night feeling sad and lonely, and curled up next to me because it, I guess, made him feel better or something. I sighed and chewed on my fingernail. I'd been thinking way too much that day. What I needed was to go sit down with Bad Twin and Pancho and watch a romcom or a game show with them or whatever. Something to occupy my thoughts. I didn't have any clients to meet, which wasn't common for a Friday but also not unappreciated. The only client of mine I cared about was the one currently living with me.

I pushed myself off of my bed and walked into the living room. Pancho and Bad Twin were watching a Jeopardy rerun. I sat down on the floor next to Pancho as Alex Trebek read off a question. The dark blue color on the screen was reflected in Pancho's eyes, which he didn't seem to be able to tear away from the television. This was probably a good thing, because otherwise he would've caught me staring. I didn't even realize I was staring. Fuck.


	5. cough it out

The episode ended, and Bad Twin was complaining loudly again about how hungry he was. He had a point, too; it was getting late. Pancho chimed in with a comically loud noise from his stomach, turned to me, and said, "Dude, did you fucking hear that? Come on, we're starving here."

I was getting a little hungry as well. I sighed for about the five millionth time that day. "Alright, what do we want? I'm not cooking anything."

Bad Twin piped up first, and unenthusiastically stated, "Chinese."

Pancho looked excited about this, and nodded at me, brown eyes wide. Chinese was reasonable enough, and chow mein actually sounded pretty good. I got up to go get the takeout menu and the phone. Pancho got up also and followed me into the kitchen. While I dialed the number, he stood next to me, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. I swear, if we hadn't been talking earlier, I wouldn't have known he was going through withdrawals. It was impossible to tell. His eyes were as bright as ever, and a smile tugged the corners of his lips upwards. I frowned a little bit as I listened to the phone ring. He was so hard to figure out. Wasn't it just about an hour ago that he was barely able to force out a smile? But seeing him excited encouraged my own smile. I ordered Kung Pao chicken and a side of chow mein for myself, the usual fried shrimp and three orders of wontons for Bad Twin, then turned to Pancho, who was looking over the menu. "What do you want?" I asked.

"Um," he took a moment to scan the menu once over again and sniffed, "I think I'm gonna get fried shrimp with an order of pork fried rice."

I gave Pancho's order to the androgynous accented voice on the phone. I lowered the phone for a second to ask, "Are spring rolls good?"

I probably shouldn't have asked. He screwed up his face, and replied, "Ugh, no, I want egg rolls."

"What? No, we're getting spring rolls, man," I insisted. Spring rolls were obviously the better option.

"Dude, what the fuck? Egg rolls."

Bad Twin interrupted, shouting from the other room, "You two sound like an old married couple, for fuck's sake. God, who the fuck cares?! Just order the fucking food and shut the hell up!"

I felt a blush rise to my face, which must've been visible because Pancho smirked at me. I rolled my eyes and asked for a half order of eggs rolls and a half order of spring rolls. After I hung up the phone, I turned to Pancho, who was still looking at me. His smirk had faded a little bit, replaced by a thoughtful, slightly curious look. It kind of reminded me of when I was making the eggs that first morning and he wouldn't stop staring.

There was a short silence where he just kept looking at me and I did my best not to make eye contact with him. The kitchen suddenly felt really cramped with just us in it, and it was starting to get to me. "Yeah. Okay, um," I broke the silence with a string of stuttering, "uh, how about we go back into the living room? There's not a lot of room in here, and ah, so..."

Pancho sniffed, finally looking away from me to glance around. "There's plenty of room in here," he pointed out, and I knew it was true, but he shrugged anyway and walked back into the living room.

I sighed and shook my head as I followed him back out. Man, what the hell was wrong with me? Every time he was around me I got so acutely aware of everything I was doing, and thinking straight was a challenge. The space between us, no matter how far apart we were, seemed heavy and thick with some kind of weird, tense, awkwardness. I was about to sit down next to him on the floor again, but realized we might as well just go now. The food would be ready about the time we got there. I voiced this, and Pancho tilted his head at me. "You want me to come with, pretty boy?"

_Shit._ He was a relentless tease. "I- fuck you, let's just go." I grabbed the car keys and my jacket and started out, Pancho following close behind and snickering under his breath at who-knows-what. I turned to look at him as we were going up the stairs, and my suspicions were confirmed. He was staring at me again.

When we climbed into the car, he quickly switched the car radio to the oldies station he liked. It was kind of funny how he liked all those songs so much. I wasn't complaining though; I liked the station as much as he did and it was a lot better than the rap he would be listening to otherwise. We caught the last couple of seconds of somebody singing about some sort of lost love, but then as we pulled out of the driveway, the familiar bass line of "Stand By Me" came on and Pancho enthusiastically turned the radio up, bobbing his head like he did every time he listened to music. He started doing his half-shout, half-sing thing again, looking at me the whole time with his eyebrows raised as if he expected me to join in with him. I tried to not pay too much attention to him, otherwise I would get distracted and might get in trouble. It was hard though what with him pointing at me every time the chorus came on and leaning over the center console to poke me in the shoulder. 

_"Oh darlin' darlin, stand! By me! Oh, stand! By me!"_ he shouted, looking at me pointedly with the stupidest look on his face. It was really hard to be annoyed at him for distracting me when he had that look on his face, especially when I thought about how happy he seemed now compared to earlier. Regardless, I had to drive the car. I humored him with a smile and hummed along, wondering what possibly could've caused his mood to shift so drastically as I switched lanes. Was it me? No, that was ridiculous. Maybe he just gets mood swings or something. My thoughts were interrupted when Pancho abruptly stopped his sing-shouting and blurted out, "I never got to finish telling you my raccoon story!"

"Oh, yeah," I replied absentmindedly, "with the, uh, the french fries, right?" I glanced at him for a second before turning my eyes back to the road, and his face lit up.

"Yeah! So I'm throwing the french fries at this raccoon that followed me all the fuckin' way to work, and I'm just thinking…"

His voice blurred into the background as I turned left. It was difficult to focus on him and navigate traffic at the same time, and it was frustrating me that I couldn't just block him out anymore. I hated getting involved.

"So I run in and close the door behind me, and that's it. Hey, were you listening?"

"Yeah, yeah," I drawled as I pulled into the parking lot of the Chinese place. He rolled his eyes at me and turned down the radio a little bit. For a couple of seconds, we just sat there with this tension in the air, like we were both waiting for the other to get out of the car first.

Finally, Pancho sniffed and unbuckled his seat belt, looking at me expectantly as he opened the door and swung his legs out. He ruffled his hair and asked, "Are you comin', pretty boy?"

"Mhm." I followed him out of the car, a little bit unfocused on the actual Pancho and preoccupied on the troubled one in my memory who was going through withdrawals and wouldn't get the hell out of my thoughts. It was unsettling how much I thought about him. But it was hard not to when he was so...Pancho. He was holding the door open for me at the restaurant despite the outside chill that he was letting in. The expression on his face was somewhere between a smirk and a smile, and it suited him almost as well as his salmon-colored button-up did. The buttons weren't matched up quite right, and I considered pointing it out, but he wouldn't have cared anyway. As much as I was opposed to that shirt, it looked kind of nice on him.

Picking up the food was the easy part. It was all ready for us, I paid, and we left. The hard part was trying to focus on anything but Pancho. He kept sniffing, kept drawing my attention to the way his shirt was buttoned unevenly, kept staring at me with that smirky smile for some reason, watching me as intently as he was before in the kitchen with the eggs on that first morning.

Traffic seemed to have cleared up considerably by the time we started home. There were still a couple of assholes why didn't use their turn signals, but other than that it was a smooth trip. Bad Twin was watching Wheel of Fortune on the couch when we walked in, and actually sat up straight when he saw us come into the room. He must've been really hungry. I for one was starving, and smelling the food in the bag on the way home had done nothing to help. Pancho's stomach grumbled again and he opened the Styrofoam boxes of steaming food. He rifled through the fortune cookies at the bottom of the bag, finally coming up with the pair of cheap, splintery chopsticks that they always toss in there.

I frowned at him as I got out a fork for myself and my brother. "You want a fork?" I offered, holding one out to him. He shook his head, intent on balancing the chopsticks between his fingers. All his attention was on the task at hand: not dropping both the shrimp and the chopsticks while he tried to eat. I got a fork out for him anyway, figuring he would need one eventually, and set it next to his spot at the table. Damn. I hadn't even realized it, but Pancho had his own seat at the table by now. It wasn't really a surprise, but it still strange to think about. Bad Twin made his way into the kitchen, stretching like he hadn't really moved all day, which he probably hadn't.

"Nobody touched my wontons, right?" he confirmed as he got a glass of water, "I fucking swear to god, if anybody touched my wontons..."

"No, Bad Twin, nobody touched your wontons," I answered. He was such a fucking diva about his food.

"Good, good," he muttered under his breath, grabbing his boxes of food.

I tried to stifle a laugh as Pancho fumbled with his chopsticks and dropped a piece of shrimp on his shirt. He glared at me from his seat, but I could tell he was trying not to laugh, too, because he started choking on his fried rice. Bad Twin rolled his eyes as he got his fork, muttering something under his breath as he walked by me back into the living room with his food. I didn't catch what he said, but I figured that was probably a good thing. Pancho, meanwhile, was starting to finally get a hang of the chopsticks, but he could only eat one grain of rice at a time and it was almost painful to watch. He was still laughing to himself every now and then like he was replaying it in his mind.

I started in on my chicken, but I was hungry enough that it didn't take much to fill me up. By the time I was finished eating, there was still a lot of food left and Pancho was still doing his best with the chopsticks. We would probably have leftovers for dinner the next day. I hoped Bad Twin wouldn't complain too much, but that was probably getting my hopes up too high. I put my leftovers into a plastic container and placed them in the fridge, taking care to select the right color lid and correct shape. Bad Twin had an organizing system for our Tupperware, and got upset if it was messed up. I looked over at Pancho, who was still eating, and frowning down at his food, which he had barely made a dent in. "Hey, you, uh, you wanna use a fork?" I asked.

He furrowed his brow, then sighed, looking defeatedly at the pair of chopsticks in his hand. "Yeah, fine. Fine." He picked up the fork I had set out for him at the table, looking up at me with an expression somewhere between disappointed and mildly disgruntled.

I guess in a way I felt a little bad for him, because he had seemed pretty excited about using the chopsticks and it just hadn't really worked out. But then I realized it was stupid of me to feel bad for him at all, because it was his dumb-ass idea to try and use the chopsticks, and he could've set them down at any time. _God dammit._ When did I start caring so much? At least now, with his fork, Pancho could eat at the rate of a normal human being. He still chewed loudly, but I couldn't tell if I had just gotten used to it or if he had gotten better about it. Either way, it wasn't as much of a problem as it had been a week ago.

When he finished, I boxed up his leftovers for him as he looked on at Bad Twin's organizing system with a look of confusion. I don't know why Bad Twin got so weird about Tupperware, but it at least kept things organized; we had a different color lid for each day of the week, and he made sure they stayed in perfect rainbow order in the cupboard. Leftover takeout went in the circular containers, and when we had leftovers after I cooked, they went in the rectangular Tupperware. Bad Twin was watching a soap or something in the other room. In between those dramatized kissing noises that you always hear on TV, the couple was professing their love to each other through all kinds of poorly-written metaphors. I spaced out, staring at the inside of the refrigerator for a couple seconds before I realized what I was doing. When I turned to face Pancho, he was doing it again. Staring at me. Just like before, with the eggs, and in the kitchen earlier, and when I was going up the stairs, and in the Chinese restaurant. I was probably reading too much into it, but I couldn't shake the way it made my cheeks burn when I thought about it.

***

"Hey, Pancho?" We had just finished brushing our teeth, and we were standing on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom.

"Yeah, what?"

"You didn't, uh," I paused, trying to figure out the best way to phrase my question, "you didn't tell anyone at work anything about, um, me, right?" It was killing me. I had to know.

"Wh- you mean, like, the coke and stuff?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, yeah," I clarified.

He shook his head a little and his face was scrunched up. "What?! No, of course not, man. Why the fuck would I do that?!"

"I-I, I don't know, I just," I stuttered awkwardly, "just 'cause you're Pancho. I don't know." As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn't, because he just looked kind of confused and hurt. I couldn't fucking believe myself. I mean, I know I could be an asshole sometimes, but I really didn't mean to say that. He sniffed, raising his eyebrows at me in a way that only made me want to take back my words more. "I- no- I'm sorry, I, um, I didn't mean it like that, fuck, I'm- that's not what..." I trailed off, sick of my stuttering.

Pancho sniffed again. He still hadn't said anything, which made it even worse. Finally, he sighed, and I could smell the mint on his breath even from where I stood. "That was fuckin' low, Bedussey." He shuffled his feet. "Below the belt." I winced. I knew it was a terrible thing to say, but there wasn't much I could do about it now. "But, um, it's okay, actually. I mean. If I were you, damn, I don't think I would trust me." He laughed a little bit, still looking confused and hurt but smirk-smiling at me anyway. "I did tell my coworkers about you, but just, y'know, that you were being really nice and putting up with me and all that shit."

I sighed, finally glancing over at him. I still felt awful, but he was helping a bit. "I'm still sorry though, I just, I don't know."

"But listen here, pretty boy," he continued, not breaking eye contact with me and suddenly more serious, "I would never tell anyone. Not ever, okay? You can trust me on this."

I blinked. I'd never seen him so serious before and it was kind of throwing me off. "Um. Thanks? Yeah. Thanks, Pancho."

He grinned and did his attempting-to-wink face. "Uh-huh. You never call me 'sugar' anymore though, why the hell is that?"

_Because you sleep in my bed, and because my head wants me to think things that I know I can't, and I can't tell you because I don't even know what's going on,_ I thought. I couldn't fucking say that out loud. "Eh, I don't know. I just forgot, I guess," I lied, "why?"

"No reason, I just miss it, I guess. I dunno." He would've sounded almost causal if it weren't for the preceding conversation.

"Oh." What did he mean by that? Was he messing with me on purpose? He had to be. I needed to get some sleep. "Okay," I said, rubbing my hand against the back of my neck. "Well, maybe we should get to bed," I suggested, gesturing at the door.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," he acknowledged, "it's been a long week."

"Sure has," I agreed as I walked out of the cramped bathroom and down the hall to my bedroom, with him following close behind. I sat down on my bed and examined the fabric of my pajamas while Pancho stripped down to his boxers, which he slept in. It wasn't like I hadn't seen him in his boxers before. That was what he wore to bed every night, and he even still wore a t-shirt, so there was nothing embarrassing or revealing or whatever about it. I still wasn't going to watch him change, though; that'd just be weird. I didn't want to watch Pancho change. Of course I didn't. That would be ridiculous.

When he finally finished changing, I glanced at him again, yawning and scratching his head. "Are you gonna make eggs again tomorrow?" he asked, sitting on the edge of my bed like he had taken to doing before he crawled into his sleeping bag every night for the past week. I knew he would end up in my bed by the time I woke up, but it didn't bother me as much now that I had an idea as to why. If I was right, and it was because he was going through withdrawals, then I couldn't really be mad at him for it.

I nodded as I pulled the covers up around me, flipping on my side so I could look at him instead of the ceiling. "Yeah, I guess so." Why not? Besides the fact that he had been asking me to make eggs again all week, I liked to make them on the weekends.

Pancho closed his eyes and smiled. _"Fuck yes,"_ he breathed.

I laughed, although it wasn't really so much of a laugh as it was me blowing air out of my nose louder than usual. He really was funny sometimes, even if he wasn't trying to be and it was just him being, well, Pancho. That brought me back to the conversation in the bathroom earlier. God, I was such a dick. I still felt terrible. He hadn't done anything, and I just assumed he had done the worst. Apparently my thought process didn't believe in "innocent until proven guilty,” which really fucking sucked because it had resulted in me fucking everything up with Pancho. I realized I had just kind of been absentmindedly staring in his direction for the past few seconds (which I think he'd noticed, because he was kind if looking at me funny), and I had to say something. I ended up settling with, "Hey, look, I'm really sorry."

He smiled at me again, which only made me feel worse. "Don't worry about it," he brushed it off a little too easily in my opinion, but I tried not to dwell on it, "I'm used to it."

I frowned. He was used to it? What did that mean? I didn't like the fact that he was "used to it,” for some reason. "I still feel bad though, I just-"

"Bedussey." He was looking at me with this funny expression, and for half a second it looked like affection, but my head quickly replaced that with amusement. "Dude. Calm down about it, okay? People are gonna start thinking you fuckin' care about me or some shit if you keep talking like this."

_What the fuck._ I internally groaned at the whole situation. He was sad but wouldn't express it in front of me, I felt guilty for saying something I shouldn't have, and I was having painful flashbacks to a week ago when we were talking after his nightmare. "Ugh, Pancho. What the hell. Remember? I, y'know, care about you. I told you last week and it's," I sighed, completely embarrassed and shocked by the words coming out of my mouth but still feeling bad enough for him to keep talking, "it hasn't changed or, um, anything. Okay? So just shut the fuck up and let me worry."

Pancho smirked (it kind of seemed like that was his go-to expression when he was around me) and raised his eyebrows at me. "Okay, pretty boy. If you say so. I won't stop you. I mean, same goes for me, y'know?" He paused for a second, I think waiting for some sort of acknowledgment. I nodded, and he continued, "Anyway, don't worry about it. Seriously, I forgive you."

"Okay," I sighed. He was being unnecessarily nice about this, which I hated. I somehow _wanted_ him to be mad at me for some reason. Maybe it would make it easier for me to ignore the stray thoughts that kept popping into my head regarding Pancho, the ones that liked to focus on him calling me "pretty boy,” and the way he was wearing my shirt last Sunday morning, and how he was still sitting on the edge of my bed. He was looking at me with his big brown eyes that I suddenly realized reminded me of chocolate, or maybe whiskey. _No,_ I reminded myself. It suddenly struck me how tired I was. "Maybe we should go sleep soon," I yawned.

"Yeah, okay. That's fair," he yawned back, rubbing his eyes. "I told you the raccoon story, right?"

I sighed a little bit, but still smiled, "Yes, Pancho, you told me the fucking raccoon story. You need to sleep." I was laughing through my words.

"Okay, okay." He stood up, but instead of sitting down on the floor and climbing into his sleeping bag, he pulled back the covers on my bed and laid down next to me. "What are we doing tomorrow?" he asked, and yawned. He still smelled like mint.

The composure of how he did all of this was almost as shocking as the overall reality of what he was doing. Still, I rolled over to face him, and tried to ignore how close our faces were after I did. His eyes were so bright, and I hadn't even paid much attention to it before, but he had really nice skin. I didn't even have the time to stop my own thoughts, my mind was racing so fast. "What? I, uh, I don't know, I, um, Pancho?"

"Yeah?" He moved his head around a little, having neglected to get his pillow from the ground, he was just resting his head on the mattress.

"You're, you.." I swallowed. Sure, he'd slept in my bed every night for the past week, but I had never fallen asleep next to him. My throat was kind of dry, and once again I tried to will away the warmth threatening to rise to my face.

"What is it?" he asked, looking at me like he was trying to smirk but was too tired to.

I sighed, struggling to regain control of my thoughts. Okay, so Pancho was sleeping in my bed. Not a real problem, because I had (somehow) gotten used to waking up next to him. Alright, well, he had skipped starting off sleeping on the ground altogether. "You, uh," I stumbled over my words. What the hell was I supposed to do, just brush it off? I couldn't just tell him to go sleep on the floor. "Do you wanna get your pillow? I mean, you look kinda uncomfortable."

I couldn't fucking believe myself. This was the exact opposite of what I wanted, right? He wasn't supposed to be sleeping in my bed, he wasn't even supposed to be here at all. So why was I just letting it happen? Why was my face getting warm because he was lying next to me? Why was I tripping over my speech when only a week ago everything had been fine? I tried to convince myself that absolutely nothing was happening as Pancho leaned over to grab his pillow from the floor. He fluffed his pillow and set it down next to me on the bed, and maybe I was just tired, but it almost looked like he was smiling to himself as he lay down and looked at me again. It seemed like he started to say something, but was interrupted by another yawn, which I caught. I realized again just how exhausted I was, which only made me more tired. "I'm gonna turn the light out," I said, more to myself than to him.

Mm, 'kay," he replied sleepily as he rustled the blankets around a bit.

I rolled over and flicked the switch. I'd been getting used to sleeping in the dark, but it still made me anxious. I stared up at the ceiling, waiting for Pancho to fall asleep so I could, too.

But it took Pancho a long time to fall asleep. It didn't really come as a surprise; insomnia is a side effect of cocaine withdrawals. For a while, there was just a lot of him rustling around, sniffing, and sighing, all of this like he was trying to be quiet but not doing a very good job. Finally, the sounds of him moving around grew more and more infrequent and _finally_ he lapsed into his quiet snoring. I relaxed without realizing how tense I'd been, and my exhaustion overtook the discomfort of the dark. The added warmth of having another person in my bed was nice as long as I avoided the fact that the other person was Pancho. It was a weird thing to think about, but I was too tired to do much thinking anyway. His breath hitched, and he moved a little closer to me in his sleep. I was half-asleep and only getting more drowsy. I would have scooted over or pushed him away if I hadn't been so tired, but I was, and he just kept getting closer. It was hard to tell whether the warmth I felt was from his own body heat or just me, stupidly enough, blushing again. The last thing I remember thinking before I fell asleep was how I could still smell the toothpaste on his breath.


	6. calm before the storm

I unlocked the door, sighing. It was only Wednesday and I was already exhausted. I mean, at least I was halfway through the week, but I just wished it was over already. My thoughts were interrupted by Pancho, who shouted, "Bedussey! Hey, you're home!" from across the house, not even bothering to check that it actually was me.

I walked into the living room where he was standing. He'd been staying home alone for the most part. I'd come home and have lunch with him some days, but for the most part it was just him and Bad Twin. I noticed my brother wasn't on the couch, which was unusual. Remembering that I should probably acknowledge Pancho, I greeted him with, "Hey, Pancho. Where's Bad Twin?"

"I dunno," he shrugged, "he said he was 'going out'." He put air quotes around "going out" and looked around the room for a second, then continued, "But, uh, how was your day? How's work and stuff?"

I sighed. Work had been terrible, actually. The funds for the project we'd been working on for months had gotten cut, and now we were struggling to find a way to finish it with half the budget we'd had previously, and most of the computers had gone and fucking crashed. I mulled over how to answer for a couple seconds. Either way, Pancho would bombard me with questions, so I settled with an honest "Shitty."

Pancho frowned at me. "Aw, really? That blows, man. Tell me about it!"

Every day after I got home from work, Pancho would ask me about how my day was, what I had for lunch on the days I didn't go home to eat with him and Bad Twin, how was traffic, how was the lady with the office down the hall or the guy who always smelled like cabbage, and any other questions he could think of. Even though it was a little bit annoying to have to talk about my work day as soon as I got home, it was also kind of nice to have somebody greet me other than a dismissive head nod from Bad Twin.

"It's nothing really, just, our budget for that project got cut, which makes everything a lot harder," I sighed, "and the fucking computers crashed, too. So that was great." I took advantage of the fact that Bad Twin was gone and sat down on the couch. Pancho followed suit and took the seat next to me.

"Man, that fuckin' sucks. Sorry." He looked at me with an expression that almost seemed to be sympathy, but I had gotten in the habit of trying not to read into his actions too much.

"Yeah. Thanks," I replied.

"But hey, uh, how's cabbage guy?" He nudged me with his elbow, smiling a little. Was he trying to cheer me up or something?

I laughed a little. "I actually didn't see _or_ smell cabbage guy today. I think maybe he was sick."

"Aw," he scowled, seemingly disappointed. "Well hey, at least you didn't have to deal with him today!"

I looked down at my shoes for a second, then at him. I forced a weak smile and said, "Yeah. Yeah, that's true." _Why did he care so much?_

He sat up straight for a second, like he had suddenly remembered or realized something, then leaned back onto the couch and looked at me to ask, "What's for dinner?"

"Leftover spaghetti." I shrugged. Leftovers weren't very exciting, but Pancho never seemed to get tired of them. It was one of his weird little quirks that made it easier to live with him, among his dedication to dental hygiene and, of course, his snoring.

Pancho nodded, apparently happy with my answer. "Dude. That spaghetti is some legit shit. I'd take it over turkey on Thanksgiving."

I snorted. In the back of my mind, I noted that variants of laughter were something I did a lot more when I was around him. "Good to know."

There was a brief silence. I kind of wanted to go and knit, and besides the fact that I was enjoying getting to sit on the couch for once, there was nothing to distract Pancho while I was in my room, and it would just be a mess. He was chewing on his bottom lip thoughtfully, eyes not looking quite focused when I glanced at him.

For a second I stared, focusing on the way he was biting his lip, then he turned to face me, cutting me off mid-thought. He got this look on his face, and I could tell he was going to attempt to tell me a story. Often he got distracted or cut off, but he started in with, "Oh! So, today, I was watching TV and that one ad for the Shirley Temple DVD box set came on. And y'know, I really liked that ad when I first saw it, but now I've just seen it way too many times. Anyway, the songs are stuck in my head now."

"Oh," I responded, not really sure what else to say, "okay. Cool."

"Yeah." He went back to staring off and biting his lip distractedly again, and I went back to staring. I almost could've wondered what it would've been like to-  _No._ I stopped myself, averting my eyes to the floor. Maybe I could convince myself that it would be alright if I just had the occasional thought cross my mind that, I don't know, Pancho wasn't a bad looking guy, but anything more than that would cause things to get complicated. Things were already complicated enough; he'd been staying in my house for a week and a half and I still had no idea what his plans were.

I sighed. Neither of us had said anything for a while, and the silence had gotten awkward. I broke it with, "How come you like those infomercials, anyway? Seems like you're always watching them, and you never mute them."

"Huh. I dunno, they're just funny I guess," he answered. I couldn't think of anyone else in the world who watched infomercials for fun.

"Well, I'm not gonna argue with you, but..." I trailed off, shaking my head at him. He was humming a vaguely familiar show tune, presumably one off the Shirley Temple ad, and chewing on his lip again absentmindedly, which was driving me crazy. I willed him to say something, anything, to break the silence. I was about to make up an excuse to leave when he turned to me again.

"I barely ever see you," he complained all of a sudden, looking kind of confused in a way that reminded me of the look on his face after he kissed me. I still couldn't fucking believe he did that, and it was a memory I tried not to revisit too often. But of course, now that something had reminded me of it, I'd of course be thinking about it in the background for the indefinite future. "I wish you didn't have to go to work every day."

"What?" I blinked a few times, trying to sort out my thoughts enough to properly respond to what he just said. "What do you mean? You, I, you see me literally every day."

Pancho frowned a little bit, sniffing before he kept talking. "I don't know, it just gets lonely here while you're at work."

"What about Bad Twin?" I asked. It didn't make any sense; he wasn't alone in the house the whole day. Was it possible that he missed me? No, no, of course not. That'd be ridiculous. Right?

He paused, forehead creasing in thought for a second before saying, "I mean, don't get me wrong, Bad Twin's really cool. But I dunno, I miss you, I guess. You're more fun."

_Oh my god._ I couldn't believe it. He fucking missed me. "You, um," I stuttered, "I mean it's not like I can just not go to work."

"Well, why not?!" Pancho demanded, leaning in and putting a hand on my knee.

I glanced down at his hand, and then up at him. The corners of his lips were threatening to curve into a smirk, but didn't quite. Raising an eyebrow skeptically at him, I explained, "Because I need to make actual legal money so I don't go to fucking prison. If I don't go to work, I can't feed all of us."

He sighed and took his hand off of my knee to slump back into the couch. "I guess that's fair," he admitted, reluctantly. "Wait, why don't I just go to work with you?"

"Wh- Why?" I repeated.

"Yeah, why?" It was beginning to sound like there was an echo in the room.

I thought for a second about why exactly Pancho shouldn't come with me to work. For one, he'd get in the way and distract me from my work. That was one thing at home, but I didn't want him messing up my work life as well. And secondly, I just really couldn't picture any situation where he came to work ending well for me. Pancho just wasn't really a "work" kinda guy. However, saying any of that as an explanation as to why he couldn't come to work with me would be disastrous and really just rude. I settled on, "Because… Because you just can't, that's why."

He kind of just sat there and frowned for a bit, then said, "Y'know what, okay. I won't come to work with you. I get it." Even still, he looked down all discouraged at his hands twisting the fabric of his shirt, sniffing a couple of times.

I felt like I should do something, like maybe, I don't know, put a hand on his shoulder or provide further explanation, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I fought back a sigh-- I'd been doing way to much of this sighing stuff lately-- and picked up the remote from the arm of the couch. "Okay, well," I did my best to console, "I'm here now, so do you wanna watch some TV or something?"

Pancho smiled a little bit, untangling his fingers from his t-shirt and pushing himself back to a more upright position, nodding. "Damn right I do. We should watch a horror movie."

"Umm..." I raised my eyebrows at him, then went back to scrolling through the channels. "I don't think so."

Pancho scrunched up his face for a second, then studied at the TV with a look of distaste. "What the fuck even is this, the news? C'mon man, let's watch a horror movie!" He paused, then added with a smirk, "You can scream and hold me if it's too scary for you, pretty boy."

I rolled my eyes. It wasn't that I was scared, I just would rather watch something else. But Pancho was persistent. "Alright," I conceded, handing the remote over to him, "find us a horror movie."

"Yes," he responded, drawing out the "s" as he started flipping through the channels. After a couple of minutes, he finally found one that had probably started about fifteen minutes ago, but he settled for it, since we were both tired of looking. He set the remote down on the arm of the couch and brought his knees up to his chest, somehow finding a way to scoot closer to me in the process. I shrugged my jacket off, glancing over at him for a second. He sniffed, fixated on the screen, and I decided I should probably turn my attention to the movie as well.

I thought the movie was boring, but Pancho was enthralled. He kept making comments and trying to talk to the characters. I pointed out that this was ridiculous, since they actually couldn't hear him, and he was just distracting both of us from the movie, but he just looked at me with this expression that read "shut up and let me talk to the movie.” So I did. He kept tensing up at the jump scares, which caused him to scoot closer to me. Towards the end of the movie, the main character opened some door that she obviously shouldn't have, and Pancho screamed and practically climbed on top of me. He was gripping my arm tightly, and I looked at him quizzically. I wanted myself to want to push him off, but I found myself doing nothing and turning back to the TV.

The characters on screen kept making terrible decision after terrible decision, and it was starting to get to me. I mean, how does stopping to shut all the doors make any difference when the possessed guy can easily just break through them? It's one of the reasons I was never a fan of horror movies. I had to give the producers a plus for creativity, though. The multitude of ways they managed to kill people off was surprisingly impressive, in a twisted way. Pancho was a complete mess, but it seemed like he couldn't tear his eyes away from the movie. It was kind of funny how he had offered to hold me if I got too scared and now he was the one shaking, clutching my arm, and making these tiny high-pitched squeaks every time something happened on the screen.

When the movie finally ended, I felt him ease up a little bit. He loosened his his grip on my arm, but, for some reason, was still holding on while the credits rolled. I turned my head to look at him for a second, and he met my gaze. This resulted in a couple seconds of tense, awkward, eye contact, ending when I sighed nervously and looked away. He was just so… god, I didn't even know. After the credits finished and the TV cut to an advertisement, he got up from the couch and sort of brushed himself off. As he meandered toward the kitchen, he turned and said to me, "Thanks, pretty boy," with that attempting-to-wink face.

***

I checked the clock. Twelve-thirty meant it was time for my lunch break, and I was starving. I stood up and started to clean up my desk a bit before I left to go have lunch with Pancho and Bad Twin at home, but I was interrupted by the door to my office opening and the familiar outline of none other than Pancho leaning against the door frame. He was holding a plastic bag that I hoped contained lunch, and he was wearing the shirt I'd given him on that first night. I kept meaning to ask for it back, but he'd just sort of claimed it as his own. He said it was comfy, and he never bothered to roll the sleeves up, which left me uncomfortably flustered. Why was he even here? I'd told him last Wednesday that he shouldn't come to work with me. Come to think of it, that was probably why he was here; just to torment me. He'd seemed pretty upset about not coming to work with me that day. Then we'd watched a horror movie, and he got scared and clung to me the whole time, and he had nightmares that night and made noises in his sleep and when I woke up his arms were wrapped around me (which I shook off as soon as I snapped myself out of some obnoxious bullshit fantasy). Realizing I had just kind of been standing at my desk staring at him for the last couple of seconds, I stuttered out, "Pancho? What are you doing here?"

He looked at me with this shit-eating grin, and greeted me with, "Surprise! I brought you lunch!"

"Wow. Uh. Thanks." I most certainly was surprised. I didn't understand Pancho or his motives, and never really would, but I was grateful that I didn't have to drive back home for lunch or tag along with some coworkers to go get food somewhere. This in turn led me to realize that Pancho couldn't have taken the car to bring me lunch, because I drove to work everyday. "Um, Pancho?" I began as he walked over to me and set the plastic bag down on my desk.

"Yeah?" he asked as he picked up a pen from my desk and studied it.

"How did you get here? I mean, I took the car." I watched him stroll around my office, nodding at the plant at the corner and the clock on the wall.

He smiled as he walked back toward me and shrugged, slipping the pen in his pocket. I was going to stop him, but it wasn't one of my better pens and I could just get it back from him later. "I walked."

Did he really fucking walk? I shook my head at him as he plopped down in my swivel chair and spun around a few times. "Pancho, did you really walk? You didn't, I don't know, take the bus or anything?"

He slowly spun to a stop facing me, and his eyebrows were raised like he was answering a stupid question, which he kind of was. "Yes, I walked. And the last time I took a bus anywhere, I got so fucking lost."

"You do realize that's like, almost six miles, right?" I leaned against my desk as I watched him spin around in my chair. I couldn't believe he had walked six miles to bring me lunch at work. Why would he have done that? Not only was it kind of far away for such an occasion, it was chilly outside and the sky looked like it might rain. Walking to bring me lunch was ridiculous, but his hair was slightly more messy than usual, and he had a piece of a leaf stuck in it, so I found no evidence against it. Pancho simply smiled and nodded again. The question I really wanted to ask was burning at the back of my throat, and I finally asked, "Why?"

"I, uh, I dunno. I just wanted to see you, and I thought you would appreciate it, I guess," he answered, taking a final look around the room before his eyes settled on me.

"Oh, um. Thanks," I replied. "But won't the soup be cold now?"

"Shit! Sorry." He grabbed the plastic bag, taking out the soup to check that it was definitely cold, muttering, "Oh no, oh no…" to himself as he opened the Tupperware container. "The soup's cold," he admitted with a defeated look on his face.

"Hey, it's alright, man. There's a microwave in the break room, I guess, but…" I trailed off, realizing that going to the break room would mean all of my coworkers seeing me with Pancho, who was wearing my shirt, which they had definitely seen me wear before. We could just go buy lunch somewhere, but I really didn't feel like driving, and we already had food anyway.

"Yeah, let's go to the break room then. I get to meet your coworkers now!" He seemed so excited, and I didn't really want to argue with him.

"Yeah, yeah okay," I agreed, straightening my tie and pushing my sleeves up, "just let me finish cleaning up here, and then we'll go eat."

Pancho sort of raised his eyebrows and swallowed hard, which was weird. But then again, so was he.

"What?" The way it came out was sort of halfway between a question and a statement, but it was hard to concentrate on filing papers and holding conversation at the same time.

"What? Nothing," he brushed my question off distractedly as he spun the chair again.

"Alright." I stuffed some papers into a folder, then decided that was good enough and said to Pancho, "Let's go."

He slowly spun to a stop and hopped out of the chair, stumbling a little like he was dizzy. After a couple of seconds of gathering his bearings, he picked up the Tupperware container of soup, holding it as carefully as one would a child. "Oh, and it's chicken noodle," he informed me as we walked out of my office. "I forgot to tell you."

Chicken noodle was probably my favorite kind of soup, and that's what Pancho had walked six miles to bring me for lunch without even knowing it. I felt a little guilty for being reluctant to introduce him to my coworkers because he was being so damn nice for no apparent reason, but I knew it would end up just as a mess. "Really?" I asked a little absentmindedly as I reviewed in my head all the possible things that could go wrong in the break room, "I love that kind."

"I know," he said, smiling smugly to himself.

"Hm?" What was he talking about? How did he know?

"Oh, nothing." I heard him mutter something about Bad Twin under his breath, and I didn't feel like asking.

The break room was crowded, and we were attracting a lot of stares, which I hated. We had to wait in line to use the microwave, which was obnoxious. The goal had been to spend as little time as possible in the break room, and it looked like lunch was going to be delayed much more than I would have liked it to be. I sighed internally, folding my arms as I leaned against the counter. Pancho was standing next to me, holding the soup and studying each person in the room intently, probably trying to match each of them to descriptions of people I'd told him about. My moodiness was suddenly interrupted by the one guy who smelled like cabbage, asking, "Y'know, you two are such a cute couple. How long have you been together?"

_What the fuck._ As if I wasn't already annoyed. I couldn't believe this guy. We barely even talked, and he had no business making false assumptions about me. Indignantly, I protested, "What?! No, weren't not, um, it's not like that, no, I-"

"Oh, hey, sorry," he cut me off, "I just assumed, I mean, he's wearing your shirt and he brought you lunch, I just-"

It was my turn to interrupt. "No. Nope, not like that." _God dammit._ This was all Pancho's fault for bringing me lunch and wearing my shirt and looking so good in it that I- _No! Fuck._ Why the hell did I keep doing that? I was getting tired of having to cut my own thoughts off.

Pancho had just been unsuccessfully holding back laughter the whole time. He finally chimed in with, "No, we're not dating." It looked like it physically pained him to not add "…yet," onto the end of his sentence, which I knew he would have done if we were alone. I appreciated that he didn't, though; that's for sure.

I stepped aside for Pancho to put the soup in the microwave. He pressed the buttons and leaned against the counter smirking at me until I glared at him. I took the soup out of the microwave when it went off, and we almost made it out of there without a comment, until some lady had to ask, "Why don't you stay and eat with us? I'd love to meet your boyfriend."

Pancho was laughing again, and I could, unfortunately, feel my face getting hot. Annoyed as I was, I was more embarrassed. Nearly everyone in the break room was looking at us expectantly by now, curiously peering over the shoulders of their coworkers to get a glimpse of us. For a second, part of my mind wanted to wonder what it was like if there was an us, if he really was my boyfriend bringing me lunch and wearing my shirt, but I did my best to shut down that train of thought. Besides, why would I date Pancho? And why would Pancho date me? He was looking at me with his eyebrows raised like he was waiting for me to answer, just like almost everybody else, but he was the only one smirking. _God fucking damn it, he smirked so much._ "What?" I finally managed to get out, "Oh, no, we're.... we're, um, gonna eat in my office."

Pancho gave me a funny look, the smirk lingering and his eyebrows arched teasingly. "Aw, really babe?" he drawled, "I wanted to eat down here."

"What? Pancho? What the f-" I cut myself off before I said "fuck" in front of all my coworkers and my boss, and frantically retraced what'd been said. Then I remembered that the lady had called Pancho my boyfriend and all I'd said was that we were gonna be eating in my office. "Shit." I hissed, digging my fingernails into my palm. "Okay. No. I meant, um... he's not my, my boyfriend, okay? This is Pancho, he's living with me, but he's not by any stretch my boyfriend."

The lady frowned. "Oh?" was all she said, like she was disappointed. "Well that's..." she trailed off, and I hoped she would stay quiet, but of course she ended with, "a shame."

There was a tense, painfully awkward silence that followed, where most of the other people in the break room slowly went back to whatever they were doing. I needed to get out of there. The lady was frowning a little bit, and cabbage guy was looking on at the whole scene as he picked at whatever was in his bowl from the other side of the room. There were too many thoughts in my head for me to turn them into words, and felt myself rooted to the spot.

There was a part of me that wanted to think, _Yeah, it kind of is,_ and another part that wanted to stutter some more stubborn bullshit about how Pancho wasn't my boyfriend, but I ended up abandoning both ideas. I sighed and shook my head as I walked back towards my office, bowl of soup in hand. Pancho caught up with me, still laughing. It was hard to be mad at him when I had almost wanted him to have said that in a different context, and it was hard to stop thinking about that when everybody in the whole fucking office thought we were dating.

"Looks like everybody wants us to hook up, huh, pretty boy?" he teased.

I would've slapped him or something, but I was holding a bowl of soup. Instead, I gave him a warning look and said, "Pancho?"

"Hm?" He was still smirking.

"Shut the fuck up."

He sort of just laughed at that, which annoyed me, but I wasn't going to do anything. This whole thing was annoying me, the whole thing with him wearing my shirt and teasing me and fucking my whole life up for the most part. He'd been staying with me for almost three weeks, shouldn't he be getting out soon? I was going to have to talk to him about it sometime, and I wasn't looking forward to it. There was this voice in the back of my mind that wanted him to stay, but I knew that was stupid. He was just an ex-client, a temporary roommate, and sooner or later, we would each have to get on with our lives.

When we finally made it back to my office, Pancho tossed me a spoon from the bag, which I barely caught and fumbled with, and then he balled up the plastic bag and put it in his pocket. He was leaning against the wall and staring at me again as I sat down at my desk and started eat, but it was hard to do with someone watching me. "What the hell, Pancho?" I sighed, looking at him in exasperation, "Why?"

He blinked a couple times and frowned at me. "Why what?"

"Why the..." I gestured to him vaguely, too fed up with everything to give too much thought to what was coming out of my mouth, and I knew I should be grateful that he had brought me lunch in the first place but I wasn't, and that was just making me more annoyed. "The staring and stuff."

Pancho shrugged, averting his eyes and fiddling with his sleeves a little bit. "I don't know," he offered lamely. "Sorry though. Also for fucking everything up in the break room. I can tell you're pissed about that." There was a long pause where neither of us said anything. I still just wanted to eat, but I doubted I would get to do much of that with him there. And now I felt a little bad for being mad at him while he felt bad, but over all I was just exhausted and irritated. He smiled slowly and laughed to himself once. "It was kinda funny though that everyone thought we were dating."

_Why did he have to be so hard to be mad at?_ If anything, that should have made me more pissed at him, but I just laughed and said, "Yeah."

I couldn't figure out how he managed to scarf down his soup so fast and keep talking to me at the same time, but he sure did. The conversations were short, and not really anything interesting, but he seemed to be able to find ways to make anything interesting for himself. I was only halfway through my bowl when he finished and went to spin around in my chair again. He stopped the chair mid-spin to say, "Hey, Bedussey."

I sighed. "What, Pancho?"

He spun a couple more times, and from the few seconds I could see his face for, it looked like he was contemplating whether or not to answer me. Finally, he continued, "Never mind."

I hated when people did that. I mean, if you're gonna start talking to someone, why wouldn't you finish? But I didn't feel like pressing him to explain. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if he's been thinking the same thing I was, if he'd been wondering about what if we really were dating. I tried my best to push any actual hopes of that out of my mind, and tried harder to be mad at him again. We really did need to talk.


	7. snap out of it

Sometimes Bad Twin would just disappear for a few days. I didn't know where he went, he never talked about it, but I would just notice he was gone and a few days later he would come back wearing a suit and new sunglasses. He didn't tell me what he did, and I didn't ask. When he did this, I was usually alone in the house, but this time around, I was stuck with just Pancho for company.

I was sitting on the couch with Pancho, and he was watching one of his stupid infomercials with wide eyes and an unfocused smile. We had cleaned the couch while we could, and it was nice to not have to brush Dorito crumbs off my ass every time I stood up. Every time I looked at Pancho, I remembered that I needed to talk to him. It wouldn't be so bad, just find out when he planned to get his own place and everything, and go back to the rabble on TV. A small part of me didn't want to have to talk about it, just wanted him to stay forever, but I had been thinking a lot ever since he brought me soup a couple days back and I was thinking that I really needed to get a hold of myself. I needed to remember that this was Pancho who wore a fucking wire when I finally trusted him enough to let him buy at my house, who almost drowned and showed up naked on my doorstep, who kissed me the first night he stayed with us, and not Pancho who smelled like mint and wore crooked salmon-colored button-ups and whose snoring put me to sleep every night. But it didn't matter which Pancho I wanted to stay, because he was going to leave eventually, and it was better to bring it up now than to wait any longer. The TV was droning on, and Pancho was still entranced in whatever ridiculous product they were selling. I cleared my throat, and he glanced at me briefly, then went back to the TV. "Pancho?" I started, "We, um. We need to talk."

He grabbed the remote and muted the TV, turning on the couch to face me. "Yeah, uh, sure man. What's up?" He asked, obviously trying too hard to be casual about it.

I sighed. I just needed to get this over with, that was all. "I, uh. Look, you've been staying here for about a month now, and I was just wondering, y'know, when you're gonna get your own place, or something?"

He fidgeted with the hem of his t-shirt nervously, like he really didn't want to be having this conversation. I didn't blame him. "I dunno, um," he paused for a second, biting his lip, "I guess I hadn't really thought about it."

_He hadn't thought about it?_ It dawned on me that I had gotten myself into this mess. I was the dealer, I was the one who fed the god damn problem, and now I had my own fucking ex-client living with me, and he had no idea what the hell he was doing. That was also my fault. My fault for getting him hooked, my fault for trusting him. Realizing I should probably continue the conversation, I repeated, "You hadn't really thought about it?"

"Yeah, I-"

I interrupted, which was really fucking rude of me, and I wish I hadn't, but I was impatient and fed up and I just needed to know what the hell was happening. "Look, man," I sighed, "you gotta at least try here. You're kinda fucking everything up here, alright, y'know, you show up, and you're not dead, and you've got your fuckin' wire, and-"

This time he cut me off, with, "Oh, the wire? Man, that thing wasn't even fuckin' on."

I felt myself go numb. "What," my words were shaky as I spoke. I couldn't really believe it. He wouldn't have done that. He had to have known how dangerous that was and how fucking worried I'd been. "Are you..." I swallowed, trying to regain my composure, "What the hell. You. You wore a wire to my house. And it wasn't on."

He frowned, not really looking at me. "Yeah, I-"

"God damn it, Pancho!" This time, interrupting him had become the least of my problems. My sympathy had melted away, and now I was just furious. He didn't have any plans, and he had tried to mess with me by wearing a wire. "Why the fuck would you do that?! Was it supposed to be some kind of sick joke?!"

Pancho kind of shrunk back, chewing on his lip nervously and knotting his hands in his shirt. "Yeah, I, I don't know, I was just kind of-"

"Kind of what?! Kind of an idiot asshole with no concern for what his dumb-ass 'jokes' could do to some one's peace of mind?! That was _serious._ As if it wasn't bad enough you were wearing one in the first place, you wore one to my house! I fucking trusted you enough to let you come over to my god damn _house_ and you wore a wire as a _joke?"_ I wasn't thinking straight; the words were just pouring out of my mouth and there was nothing I could do to stop them. Not that I would have. It wasn't something funny that you do as a joke. Dealers constantly live with stress and "what if"s, messing around with those things wasn't something easily forgivable.

"Look, man, I'm fucking sorry, okay?!"

_"'Sorry'?_ 'Sorry' doesn't fucking cut it, Pancho. 'Sorry' doesn't do shit."

"I don't even know what the hell I was doing!" His forehead was creased, and he had pulled his hands out of the folds of his shirt.

"No shit, man, neither did I!" We were both yelling at this point, but Pancho looked sincerely upset. I would have cared if I hadn't been so mad. "God, what the hell."

"I dunno, okay, I don't fuckin' remember. I was probably just…" He mumbled the end of the sentence, and I couldn't make it out.

"What?"

"I said I was probably just flirting with you or some stupid shit like that, alright?" His voice was lowered slightly, and he looked away from me and folded his arms. When I didn't say anything, he added, "What, like you didn't fucking notice? C'mon, man."

I didn't know what to do. My mind was going in a million different directions, and I couldn't focus on any one of them long enough to form coherent sentences. On one hand, the fact that he was flirting with me made the whole thing so much worse. But on the other hand, the fact that he was flirting with me made me want to think that this made the whole thing so much better. I wanted to convince myself that everything I'd been thinking for the past month didn't matter right now, that I had to focus on what was going on at the moment, but I couldn't seem to be able to get my brain off of what he'd said.

Pancho conveniently interrupted my thoughts. His voice was honeyed, and I could hear how pissed he was. "Look, don't take it personally, pretty boy. You're not the only one."

That was it. I was done. "Oh, that's _rich,_ Pancho. God." I got up from the couch and started towards my room, leaving him on the couch.

I heard him mutter something under his breath and stand up, and even though I didn't want to look at him, I glanced behind me. He was clenching and unclenching his fists, glaring at the carpet, and right before I shut myself in my room, I heard him sigh and sit back down on the couch heavily. "Fuck this," I mumbled to myself as I paced around my room. I was too exhausted to leave the house and go for a walk, but too restless to collapse on my bed. My skin was tingling, I couldn't focus on any one thing, and I felt sort of sick as I tried to gather my thoughts. The whole thing had been a joke. The whole thing had been him trying to "flirt" with me, even though it was apparently nothing special to take note of.

I didn't know what I was gonna do with Pancho. Make him leave? He deserved it. But I didn't want to make him leave for some reason. Honestly, it was probably just because he would really have nowhere to go then, and even if I couldn't stand the sight of him at the moment, I didn't want to wish that upon anyone. I also didn't want it to have to be just us for the few days where Bad Twin wasn't home. If I was lucky, his girlfriend would come back and beg him to move back in with her. That way, everyone would be happy. But with the way things were going right now, it really didn't seem like anything so miraculous was going to happen. I would just have to do my best to avoid him. I really hoped he knew that he wouldn't be welcome in my room, and that he would take advantage of the fact that Bad Twin was gone and sleep on the couch.

I paced around my room once more, then collapsed onto my bed. God, my entire life was a fucking mess. I really should've seen this coming at some point, but I hadn't, and now it was all messed up. The situation with Pancho living with me hadn't been ideal in the first place, but it had just gone from bad to worse. He was an idiot, and I was mad, and we were both being dicks. I pressed my thumb and forefinger against my eyelids until it almost hurt and I could see those weird patterns that start to appear after a while. I didn't want to think. It wasn't even that late, but all I wanted to do was sleep. I shifted around on my bed, trying to get comfortable, but that was hard to do in the day clothes that I was too lazy to change out of. No matter what position I was in, I couldn't fall asleep. I just kept mulling over what I'd said to Pancho, and what he'd said to me. I hated both of us right then. I hated the fact that he had worn the wire as a joke, and I hated that I had burst out yelling at him. I hated that he had no idea what he was doing, that was flirting with me, and that apparently that was nothing special. I hated the fact that I was upset over that particular aspect of things. And I really fucking hated the fact that he had managed to work himself into nearly every aspect of my life, and now he was out in the living room on the couch and we hated each other.

The house was more quiet than I could remember it being for the past three weeks or so, and it was unsettling. I'd gotten way too used to the constant sounds of living with Pancho; snoring at night, complaining when I left for work in the morning or to meet clients and excited chatter when I got back, absent-minded stories with no plot while I made breakfast and whatnot. I was already mad at him, but getting even more annoyed that even when I wanted to never have to deal with him again, he wouldn't get out of my thoughts. I hated that, too. Nothing was working out, and I was getting damn near sick of it. I flicked the light switch on and off a couple of times, trying to distract and calm myself down. Going for another walk might have helped, but that would mean having to go back out into the living room, something I was definitely trying to avoid. At this point, sleep was probably my best option, but I still couldn't get comfortable.

I couldn't remember when I fell asleep, or how, but I remember waking up in my clothes that I hadn't bothered to change out of, groggy and missing waking up to Pancho lying in bed next to me. He was still asleep on the couch when I walked past him into the kitchen to make breakfast. I made eggs for breakfast, just enough for myself.


	8. some boys

I'd been pissed at Pancho before, of course, but this was different. Work was an escape from everything going on at the house, but even as I sat at my desk, I couldn't stop being irritated with everything. I couldn't focus on my work, and it didn't help that the clock was a constant reminder that I had to be sitting in front of my computer for another few hours. But also a constant reminder that in a few hours, I would have to go home. And deal with Bad Twin. And much worse, deal with Pancho. Ever since our fight, things had been terrible. It wasn't a very big house, so avoiding each other was hard, and every time we ran into each other, we usually started yelling at each other about some shit. I knew I was being an asshole, but so was he.

When Bad Twin got back Sunday evening, I was knitting, and I had already had to go back and redo multiple rows of the blanket I was working on because I had somehow started doing a god damn cable stitch instead of a rib stitch, and it completely threw me off. Pancho was in the living room, I could hear the TV from the other side of the closed door, and then Bad Twin came home and wanted dinner and I had to deal with whether or not to make dinner for Pancho, too. Breakfast was one thing, dinner was another. I ended up making Bad Twin decide what we were having for dinner, and I was relieved when he picked pizza. We'd probably have takeout for dinner for the rest of the indefinite future; at least until Pancho and I decided not to be mad at each other anymore. But for now, he could make himself his pathetic dry cereal and sleep in the living room for all I cared. Except I did care. I was trying not to, but it was hard to ignore the fact that making breakfast for just Bad Twin and myself felt weird, and I was getting terrible sleep without falling asleep without Pancho lying next to me, and I could tell he was too from the circles under his eyes.

It really didn't help the fact that I was trying to avoid Pancho as much as possible when all my coworkers were constantly asking me about “that one guy that brought you lunch a couple weeks ago”, and it _really_ didn't help when nobody believed me that he wasn't my boyfriend. I had gone to get coffee in the break room during my break, and someone had asked me, “So, I always hear everyone talking about your cute fiance, the one who brought you lunch a couple weeks ago? Do we ever get to meet him?”

“He's not-- No, oh my god,” I stuttered, “He's not my fiance, he's not my boyfriend, he's not my anything, and I'd really appreciate it if people would stop asking me about it. Thanks,” I replied abruptly, and headed back to my desk, exasperated and exhausted. _Fucking Pancho. God dammit._ So he was my fucking _fiance_ now? _Great._

I was restless all day. I couldn't keep my mind on the computer, and my coworkers had apparently decided it was a great time to all drop into my office and ask about things. They never really bothered me that much usually, but they wouldn't stop coming in. I had to answer questions about our latest project, the new software, the intern, the meetings we had coming up, and the like. And of course, the occasional person would ask about how Pancho was doing. _"We fucking hate each other,"_ I wanted to say, _"Things have been terrible for the last day or so. He's been sleeping on the floor in the living room. We shout at each other every time we're in the same room and I can't stand the sight of him. It's hell."_ Of course, saying any of that would lead to more questions, which I would get even more mad about everything would be a disaster.

"So, how are things going with your guy?" a lady asked me after she stopped in to check the time of a meeting we had coming up, "He seemed really sweet."

I sighed, just wishing she would leave my office. I had finally started to make some progress on what i was supposed to be doing, and now I had people asking direct questions about the person I'd been trying to avoid at all costs. "Yeah, no. No. He's not my 'guy' and there's nothing 'going', okay?"

She gave me a knowing smile (which I hated, because whatever she was thinking couldn't have been anything good) and said, "Okay. Sure."

I locked my office door after that, which was something I never knew I could do before, but evidently that door had a lock on it the whole god damn time. I was getting annoyed at myself for being so annoyed with everything. The entire day had been a mess so far, and it wasn't really looking up, either. I had to deal with some client after work that I didn't really want to go see, even if it was gonna be a damn good deal. I really missed my knitting clients, who were much more pleasant people. I hoped that at least with Pancho avoiding my room, I could get more knitting done than I had been able to in the last month. I glanced at the clock. Only a couple more hours, and then I could leave. Of course, it'd just be escaping one kind of hell into another, but I was getting really fucking sick of work and all these people I didn't know who thought they knew me. Really, I just wanted things to be back to normal again, but I wasn't even sure what “normal” was anymore, since Pancho had came along and screwed everything up.

***

The beginning of October hadn't changed anything. I vaguely remembered Pancho mentioning something about it being his favorite month before, but I hadn't really had a real conversation with him since we'd fought, which had been more than a week. Bad Twin had returned, but that had only made things worse. He was obviously upset, though he tried to hide it through his typical moodiness. I didn't really know why he would be upset about Pancho and me fighting, but he definitely was. He'd been watching his seventies sitcoms that he had on VHS all the time, and Pancho was being fucking pathetic. I hadn't even spoken to him; I was still mad as hell, but I could tell he was sad by the way he dragged himself around the house like a mopey zoo animal. I was getting real sick of the tense feeling in the house, too. Pancho and I would fight over spending time with Bad Twin, about what we were having for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, about what to watch on TV, about everything. I almost just wanted to forgive him and get this whole thing over with, but I was too pissed off at him and too stubborn to do that. However, I felt myself reconsidering on Monday morning, when Pancho came into the kitchen while I made breakfast for the first time since we started fighting. He was wearing my shirt again, which should've made me hate him even more, but for some reason that shirt always made it hard for to do anything around him except stutter and fight off that dumb-ass blush that always rushed to my face.

"What the fuck," he muttered to himself as he got the box of cereal out, "the only thing left of these god damn Froot Loops is that dust stuff. What the hell kind of idiot would just leave the cereal dust in the box?" He sat down at the table glumly, and looked at the box like he was considering whether or not to pour what was left of the cereal into a bowl anyway and eat that.

I kind of wanted to point out that he was the only one who ate Froot Loops, so it must have been him, but that would probably make things worse between us. And especially when I was starting to think that I didn't want us to be mad at each other anymore. I didn't want to make things worse, but I still wasn't sure how to fix things, so instead of saying anything, I just turned my attention back to the eggs on the stove. Even though it was stupid, I kind of missed making breakfast for Pancho. It was a little funny how damn happy he got when I made eggs for us. Bad Twin wasn't anywhere near as enthusiastic about things as Pancho was. I added an extra egg to the batch I had started for myself (Bad Twin had suddenly decided his eggs needed to be made separately from everyone else's, probably just to be difficult). Maybe Pancho and I should start making an effort to get along, at least on some level. I figured that this was probably a good first step. This whole thing was really my fault in the first place, and I knew that. If I hadn't sold him coke, he wouldn't have gotten hooked, and he wouldn't have kept coming back, and he wouldn't have come to the house, and I wouldn't have chased him into the lake, and he wouldn't have come back, and we never would have kissed or talked anymore than when I was selling him coke, and we never would've fought. When I thought about it like that, there was this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and all I wanted to do was to find a way to make up for all of it.

Pancho was sitting at the kitchen table, looking dejectedly at the tiled floor, pulling the sleeves of his (my) shirt down over his hands. I quickly turned my attention back to the eggs before I could give myself a chance to blush. I took Bad Twin his eggs and started on Pancho's and mine. I made them exactly the way I had the first morning, with the little splash of milk and the grated cheddar cheese. When I looked up, he was watching me the same way he had the first day. This time, I would have a hard time believing him if he told me it was just fun to watch me work. When I finished and plated the eggs for Pancho and myself, I took a deep breath before I turned around to give him his plate. It was a risky move, but I was tired of us being mad at each other, and breakfast was probably one of the best ways to patch things up. So, he had worn a wire that wasn't on. It wasn't on, and after I thought about it, that was the important thing. I checked with myself that I knew what I was doing, and turned around and set Pancho's plate in front of him. "Don't eat the cereal dust," I told him.

He looked at the food, then up at me, and he looked like he wanted to smile but wasn't sure if it was the right situation. "Thanks?" he began slowly, like he was confused. "But I thought you hated me."

Did I hate him? No. Was I still a little annoyed about his idea of a joke and that he had no future plans at all? Yes. Did I forgive him? Yeah, sure. Mostly. "I do hate you," I replied as I sat down at the table, sliding a fork towards him. He looked at me kind of funny, but I did my best to smile at him. It probably looked kind of weak, but he got the message.

Pancho smiled a little back at me as he picked up the fork. "I hate you too."

We ate our eggs mostly in silence, save for Pancho's comments about how good they were (which he made every time I cooked them). It was nice not to be mad at him, because being mad at him was exhausting. All I wanted to do was forgive him, and I never thought I would, but I really had missed him. A whole week is a long time to go without talking to someone who lives with you, and it had made everything all weird and tense. That was probably what Bad Twin had been so upset about. Things were still tense, of course, because they always sort of were. But it was different, and not as uncomfortable as it had been before. We seemed to have come to an agreement of not being mad anymore, but had gotten stuck in this pattern of not talking to each other. It felt like both of us wanted to say something, but neither of us really knew how or where to start. Pancho finished his eggs before I did, like always, and when I was done I took both of our plates into the kitchen. I could see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye as I rinsed the plates off, and I realized I'd missed that, too.

It was Monday again, and I didn't really want to go to work. That was nothing new, but today especially I just wanted to stay home and enjoy how things would be as back to normal as possible again. But I had to go. At least when I got home, I could cook dinner and we could all watch one of Bad Twin's romcoms or something. I wasn't as bothered by Pancho feeling like a normal part of my life as much anymore, which seemed weird. I was still too tired to think about that too much, but as I buttoned up my shirt in my bedroom, I glanced over at Pancho's sleeping bag on the ground next to my bed and kind of hoped he would come back soon. The smell of mint before he said goodnight, the sound of his soft snores, the warmth of him lying next to me in the morning, I wanted it all back. Realizing I would be late for work if I didn't hurry up, I grabbed my keys and jacket and headed out. Before I walked out the door to leave for work, I said goodbye to Pancho, as well as the usual head-nod to Bad Twin on my way out.

***

For the first time in over a week, coming home from work was a relief. I finally had something to look forward to at the end of the day, and that was finishing fixing things with Pancho. Things probably wouldn't be the same anymore. Hell, it was downright naive to hope for that. Hopefully though, almost normal would be normal enough. I couldn't get through my work day fast enough, and with all the work I got done, I was out of there before four o'clock.

As soon as I opened the front door and walked downstairs, I could hear Pancho laughing and cursing loudly at whatever was happening on TV. Hearing him happy was another thing I had missed and was glad to have back. A part of me wanted to question this, but I was too relieved that for the most part the tension was gone in the house to care too much about what my stray thoughts were doing. Besides, any decent person generally would prefer to have somebody happy than mopey and angry.

In the living room, Pancho was sitting in front of the couch with a video game controller in his hands, pushing buttons rapidly. It looked like he was playing one of those first-person shooter games with my brother, who was losing by a lot. "Bad Twin, dude," Pancho laughed as he stared at the animated blood on the screen, "you said you were good at this game, what the fuck, man?" He sniffed a couple times as his character fired bullets at what looked like aliens.

Bad Twin grunted and tossed his controller to the side, straightening his sunglasses on his face. "What the fuck," he mumbled, "I swear you have cheat codes or something." He looked over at me and sighed. "Bedussey. This asshole has been in a such good mood all day it's annoying the shit outta me."

I couldn't stop myself from smiling. If I didn't so clearly remember the last week or so, I would've thought nothing had changed at all. I decided they were busy enough with their game for me to go knit in my room for a few minutes. As I finished up a knit cap and a few pairs of socks, they continued yelling at each other over their game (mostly along the lines of _"Dude!_ Shit, did you fucking see that? I'm creaming your ass, man," from Pancho, and "Shut the fuck up" from Bad Twin). As the colder weather was setting in, I was getting more orders, people who needed new scarves, hats, gloves, mittens, and soon enough, it'd be Christmas and I'd be getting gift orders all over the place. The increase in customers meant I could raise my prices, and that meant I didn't have to deal coke as much, which was great for my peace of mind. This whole thing was, actually. Pancho and I were good again, Bad Twin was back to his version of normal, and I was probably the least stressed I'd been in weeks.

When dinner rolled around, I made a salad and spaghetti. Pancho and I were sitting at the table eating while Bad Twin watched one of his soaps on TV. "Dude, this spaghetti is so good," Pancho remarked in between bites, "Have I ever told you that?"

"Multiple times," I answered, "but thank you." I smiled at him.

After dinner, we watched a couple episodes of Bad Twin's soap, which he was obviously incredibly invested in, because he kept dabbing at his eyes under his sunglasses. Pancho apparently hated this particular one, because he kept looking over at me and trying to get my attention. When I turned to look at him, he rolled his eyes and mouthed to me, "I hate this one."

I hated most of what Bad Twin watched, so I could definitely relate to that. What I couldn't figure out was why he had chosen to tell me this. I raised an eyebrow at him in response.

He sighed, folding his arms and pouting out his bottom lip a bit. Then he scrunched up his face and mouthed, "I'm tired," and glanced in the direction of my bedroom.

I assumed this meant he wanted to get to bed soon, which I tried not to read into too much. I shrugged in response, not feeling like keeping a conversation going through reading lips. But he kept shifting around and sniffing and sighing loudly, until I got up, stretched, and said, "I think I'm gonna turn in for the night."

Pancho, taking the opportunity to get out of watching the soap, followed suit. "Yeah, me too," he added.

I headed into the bathroom with Pancho tailing close behind. I brushed my teeth as I watched Pancho squeeze the usual gobs of toothpaste onto his toothbrush. It occurred to me that this was the first time in over a week that we had brushed our teeth together, and that I was glad it was like this again.

After we brushed our teeth and all that, we went back into my room. Pancho slipped out of his jeans while I casually averted my eyes, and then he went to get a glass of water while I put on my pajamas. Neither of us said anything during this time, and it was really quiet in the house except for Bad Twin's soap opera still playing in the background in the living room. When Pancho came back into my room, he had a sort of confused look on his face, and he cleared his throat and leaned against the wall. He did a lot of leaning on things. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, waiting for him to say something, and he finally took a deep breath, sniffed, and asked, "So we're cool, right?" He looked at me a little nervously. "I mean. We're officially not mad at each other anymore? Because. That what it seems like. And I'm really tired of us being mad at each other. And I just really want things to be normal again."

Without thinking about it, I smiled at him. He was obviously worried about asking, and it turned him into even more of a mess. "Yeah," I assured, "Yeah, we're cool. What the hell do you think the eggs were for this morning?"

He laughed a little airily and visibly relaxed. "You're right, I guess. I just, I don't know, I just wanted to know for sure, y'know. And, um, I'm really sorry." He was chewing on his bottom lip again as he looked at me sheepishly, resting his head on the wall. "I started all that shit, and it was a huge fucking mistake, and it's my fault that we fought and everything and that was one of the worst weeks of my whole damn life."

God dammit. I couldn't believe he thought this was all his fault. I mean, sure, some of it had to be. But this was definitely my fault, too. He seemed so sad about it, and I felt terrible. “Nah, nah, hey man, it's okay,” I tried my best to comfort, standing up and sort of awkwardly patting him on the shoulder. “It's my fault as much as it is yours, if not more, and I'm sorry, too. I'm just glad it's over.”

He just kind of stood there for a second, smiling down at his feet, before he finally said, “Thanks, man. I'm not gonna argue, with you about any of what you just said, 'cause I'm tired of that.” Then he caught me off guard, wrapping his arms around me and trapping me in a hug.

I honestly had no idea what to do. We were just standing there in my room for about three seconds before I hesitantly brought my arms up around to his back. He felt so warm, and I could smell the mint on his breath and whatever product he used in his hair, which was soft. I hated to think so, but he smelled so… nice. We stayed like that for a while, and I had to clear my throat to get Pancho to let go of me.

He ruffled his hair with his hand and muttered, “Um. Sorry.” Then a little louder, “I'm just so glad we're good again, man. I was worried we were still gonna be mad at each other on my birthday.” He made his way over to the side of my bed where he'd slept before.

"Your birthday?" I asked stupidly, still trying to snatch my stray thoughts before they got too out of hand. For as long as we'd known each other, I'd never thought to figure out when his birthday was, which sounded terrible, but it was true. To be fair, I'd only ever been selling him coke in the past. Drug dealing isn't exactly the best basis to start a friendship on. But also, he had brought me a card on my birthday long before he started living with Bad Twin and me, which had been strange, but not wholly unappreciated.

Pancho nodded as he pulled the covers up around himself. "October eighth." He said it in almost a singsong voice, like he had to put it into a jingle to remember it. I wouldn't be surprised. He had been really smiley all afternoon, like he physically couldn't stop the grin from leaving his face. After a week of not seeing him be happy at all, it was almost a little overwhelming. 

As I threw back the covers and went to lay down next to him, I tried to keep the conversation going a little longer so we didn't lapse into an awkward silence. "Wow, that's in just a few days, huh?"

"Yeah, three days."

All I could think was that we had been close to still hating each other on his birthday, which would have been awful. But we were good now, and it was his birthday in a few days, and this was the perfect opportunity to make up for the last week. “What are you thinking you wanna do?” I asked.

“Y'know, I'm not sure yet,” Pancho replied, “but I'll keep you posted.” He shifted around under the covers and turned on his side, so that he was propping himself up with his elbow and look at me.

“Alright then,” I yawned, suddenly realizing just how exhausted I was. I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in over a week. “I'm so tired.”

“Same,” Pancho yawned back, rubbing his eyes. “We should probably sleep, I guess.”

“Mm. Can you turn the lamp off?” I asked as I rolled over to flick the light switch on the wall.

“Yeah, 'course, man,” he said as he reached over to the bedside table to turn off the lamp. When all the lights were off and the room was dark, we were just quiet for a few seconds until Pancho broke the silence to say, “Goodnight, Bedussey.”

“Goodnight, Pancho,” I replied, rustling the covers around a bit before settling in. The room was dark, which, of course, made me uncomfortable, but the fact that Pancho was back was oddly comforting. He fell asleep in only a couple of minutes, and before I drifted off, all I could think was that I had missed his quiet snoring so much.


	9. better together

The first thing that registered when I woke up was Pancho's arm draped over me. His head was buried in my chest, his whole body curled up right next to me. It was nothing new, of course, but I never got tired of waking up next to him. His hair was always soft in the morning, and of course he smelled like mint toothpaste and conditioner. After a while, he stirred, slowly blinking awake. It took him a couple of seconds to focus, but when he did, he smiled drowsily and leaned up to kiss my forehead. "Mornin', pretty boy," he mumbled, words a little slurred from his half-awake state. "Sleep well?"

"Yeah." I laughed a little bit. He was a mess in the mornings, but he was so god damn cute that it didn't matter. "How about you?"

Pancho yawned and sat up. "Pretty good. I had such a weird-ass dream though. There was like," He squinted and rubbed at his eyes. "There was like this road, and it was dark and I had a fish with me. And you were there, too, I think. And yeah. It was weird."

"Sounds like it," I said through a yawn. I stretched and sat up, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "Want me to make breakfast?" I asked him. I was hungry, and in the mood for maybe pancakes, or french toast.

"Mm, yes. But first, I wanna do this." He pulled me in to kiss me, soft and slow, his hands warm on the back of my neck. I smiled, leaning in and enjoying the fact that at least for now, I didn't have to go to work just yet, I didn't have to do anything. I just got to kiss him. He pulled me closer, and I tilted my head to the side a bit. I never got tired of the way he tasted, the way his lips felt pressed against mine, how he insisted on doing this every chance he got.

As much as I didn't want to, I finally pulled away. "We can continue this in the kitchen while I make us pancakes, right?"

"Of course," he answered, sneaking in one last quick kiss before I got out of bed and headed into the kitchen. Pancho was following close behind, as always, and leaned against the counter as I got out the cookbook and ingredients. I knew he was staring at me, same as he always was, but I didn't mind. It just made me want to kiss him again even more.

I glanced back at him. He was drumming his fingers on the counter top, looking at me with an absentminded smile on his face. He was wearing my old shirt over his boxers and his hair was all over the place and his eyes still looked kind of sleepy. After an unsuccessful attempt at a wink (which usually made me cringe because he thought he could wink when he couldn't, but was _so god damn cute, the way his face scrunched up and he closed both eyes at the same time),_ he blew me a kiss. I rolled my eyes at him and turned back to making breakfast. I never got over how lucky I was that Pancho loved me, and I never got over how much I loved him. Sometimes I would just remember that, and it was always a pleasant shock. I felt an idiotic smile spreading across my face as I mixed the pancake batter.

"Can we have chocolate-chip pancakes?" Pancho asked. "I fucking love chocolate-chip pancakes. More than I love you, sorry. I'm gonna replace you with my breakfast, is that okay?"

"Yeah, sure," I laughed, "as long as you'll still let me do this." I pulled him in. I could feel him smiling, and I couldn't stop myself from doing the same. "I told you we would continue this," I said before leaning into him again.

He was giggling like a little kid. "Of course, baby," he smiled, right before kissing me again, insisting on slipping his tongue in between my lips. I let him, and it was a damn good thing he used so much toothpaste, otherwise I never would have kissed him this early in the morning. We were interrupted by Pancho's stomach, which suddenly and loudly growled.

We both laughed, and I figured I should probably make breakfast so that he didn't starve. "Should I start cooking the pancakes, then?" I asked, arms wrapped around his waist.

_"No,"_ he whined, drawing out the "o" as his hand brushed my cheek and he placed a kiss on my forehead.

"I have to go to work soon, anyway," I said, "unfortunately. I wish I didn't. I wish I could stay here and do this all day."

"Me too."

I leaned my head against his shoulder for a few seconds, holding him, breathing in his scent. It almost felt like I missed him already. I sighed, then suggested, "I can make pancakes for us while I'm here, though."

"Mm," he mumbled sleepily, sneaking a kiss onto my cheek, "okay." He let go of me for a second, leaning on the counter before deciding to hug me from behind while I poured the batter into the pan. His breath was warm on the back of my neck, and his hair tickled when he moved. "I love you, pretty boy," he said, voice muffled as he pressed his face into my neck. "A lot."

"Aw, sugar," I began with a laugh. He was being especially affectionate this morning, and I hated to have to leave him and go to work. "I love you t-"

_"Yo, Bedussey!"_

"What the fuck?" I broke off, looking around. It sounded almost like... Bad Twin? But he had moved out months ago. Pancho looked confused, too, slowly unwrapping his arms from around my waist.

"Is that...?" Pancho trailed off, squinting up at the ceiling as if Bad Twin's voice was coming from the attic.

_"Bedussey! C'mon, man, I'm fucking starving!"_

Pancho frowned and gave me a quizzical look. I shrugged. I had no idea what was happening.

_"Dude! What the fuck? Wake up already!"_

***

I snapped awake to Bad Twin shouting from the other room. My heart was beating fast, and I sat up quickly, throwing Pancho's arm off of me in the proccess. What the fuck. What even was that dream? Had Pancho and I been a couple? Were we _kissing?_ How may times had we even kissed each other? Like, six or seven? That was ridiculous. Who even kissed that much?

_"Dude!"_ Bad Twin continued to complain, _"What, are you too busy fucking your boyfriend to make some god damn breakfast? You're gonna be late for work!"_

"Just a second!" I yelled back at him distractedly. _What the fuck was going on?_ I tried frantically to get a grasp on my thoughts, replaying the events as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. God, everything would be so much easier if he could just make his own god damn food.

Pancho was tossing around in the sheets, mumbling sleepily. When he sat up in bed, he yawned and stretched, he looked at me with a confused expression on his face. "What's going on?" he asked me.

"I think I overslept," I answered, a little absentmindedly. "But, um, I'm gonna go make breakfast now." As I made my way towards the kitchen, I couldn't shake my mind from what had happened. I woke up (well, not really, but in my dream) and Pancho had an arm draped across my chest, just like when I had woken up in real life. We talked, and we had kissed, and kissed again, and done a _lot_ of kissing. Why? Why did we kiss so much? Why did everything in the dream feel so soft, and nice, and warm, and sweet, and why was I suddenly unable to look at him without all my thoughts rushing to the way we'd kissed in the kitchen when I had been making him pancakes in my subconscious?

"What're we having for breakfast?" Pancho yawned, casually leaning against the counter.

_Just like he did in the dream,_ I thought, and ran a hand through my hair nervously as I tried my best to push all dream-related thoughts out of my mind. "Um. I think just toast and jam. I'm gonna be late, probably."

"Okay," he acknowledged, studying me quizzically for a second before asking, "Hey, is everything okay, man? I thought we were good again, I mean-"

"No, no," I cut him off, "everything's fine. It's nothing, just. Never mind."

"Okay, well, if you say so, I guess." I guess he picked up on how weird I was acting. He yawned and stretched, and there was nothing I could do anymore to stop my brain from going to what I was trying to avoid.

As I pushed the toast down, my mind decided to wander to how much we'd kissed, and how nice it felt, and how much I had wanted to, and how when I looked at him sitting at the kitchen table now, I really wanted to see what would happen if I just abandoned breakfast and kissed him like I had before. _Ugh. Why?_ He was staring at me like he always did in the mornings, and it was driving me even more crazy than usual, and in a different way this time. _Why was everything different now?_ I asked myself as I got the jam out of the fridge. I still needed to get dressed, and all I'd done was stutter and think about Pancho. I really needed to get myself together. "Hey man, I'm gonna get dressed. You can handle the toast when it pops up, right?" I asked Pancho.

"Yeah, I think so," he replied, "but sorry in advance if I mess it up."

"Okay. I'll be back." I went back to my room, and looked in disappointment at the unmade bed. There was no time to fix it; I'd just have to do it when I got home. I couldn't help but notice that most of the covers from Pancho's side had moved over to mine, which confused me until I remembered that he'd had his arm over me when I woke up, and slept curled up next to me almost every night. The parallels were starting to get to me. I sighed, trying to get a hold of myself as I buttoned my shirt. _It was just a dream,_ I reminded myself. But it hadn't felt like a dream at the time. Kissing and cuddling Pancho had felt unnervingly real, as well as unnervingly _good._ After I finished getting dressed, I glanced down at myself, deciding that even though my shirt was rumpled, it was decent enough. I tugged on my tie as I went back into the kitchen, hoping that Pancho hadn't found a way to mess up the toast.

"Hey!" he greeted, holding out a plate to me, "I put the jam on the toast for you. So you're not late, and stuff."

I sighed in relief. It didn't look like he had messed anything up, and I was really grateful he had spared me a couple minutes of frantically fumbling with a knife and spread the jam for me. "Wow, thanks," I said, and made the mistake of glancing at him. He was doing his smirk-smile thing, and looked pretty proud of himself. His messy bedhead was worse than usual, and there was a single strand of hair sticking straight up on his head. I really, really, wanted to reach over and smooth it down, and silently thanked the fact that I had my breakfast in one hand and my shoes in the other. I realized I had been staring at the top of his head for a couple seconds too long, and cleared my throat as I looked away. Fuck everything, I was blushing again. "Yeah. Um. Good job."

"Thanks," he smiled at me. All of a sudden I noticed how nice his smile was, how his eyes crinkled up and he got this sort of glow around him, and how he just looked so _good._ I guess I was staring again, because he raised an eyebrow at me before he said, "I'm gonna go get dressed. I'll be back."

"Okay," I replied. Pancho walked out of the kitchen, and I took Bad Twin his toast. He complained a little, but I left the room before he could finish. I was running late, anyway. I went to clean up the kitchen, and Pancho came back right as I was rinsing the silverware off. I stared for a second. His shirt was still in the process of being buttoned, which he was doing as he walked. The buttons weren't lined up the right way, and I was _really_ tempted to fix it for him.

"You sure everything's okay?" he asked as he finished buttoning up his shirt.

"What?" I shook my head a little, trying to regain my focus. "Yeah, yeah, everything's fine, I just, um, I get weird when I oversleep, I guess," I lied. Everything was definitely not fine. For some reason, the thoughts I hated to admit that I had been having about Pancho over the last month or so had only gotten worse, all because of the stupid dream, and now there was nothing I could do to stop it. It wasn't like he was helping, either, with his stupidly adorable messy hair and the way he was smiling and- _God fucking dammit, since when did I think about Pancho like this?_ I had gotten so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I hadn't really noticed that Pancho and I were kind of just standing awkwardly in the kitchen while I absentmindedly stared at him.

"Oh." He didn't look like he quite believed me, but I was relieved that even he had enough sense to not push it further. "Well. Alright." He ran a hand through his hair (which I was definitely not noticing and acutely paying attention to) before continuing, "But hey, y'know, you've done so much for me, man, if you need to talk about anything, then I've got you." He smiled at me, and I felt awful for thinking again about how the upward curve of his lips just reminded me of when we kissed, in real-life on that first night, and all those times during the dream. _We had actually kissed,_ I remembered. I wondered, not for the first time that morning, what it would have been like if I just grabbed him and kissed him. Would it feel like it had in the dream? In other words, would it feel perfect? He tried to wink, then added, "I owe you at least that."

I internally blanched, even the thought of talking to Pancho about what was bothering me at the moment enough to make me feel slightly sick. If he knew that I couldn't take my mind off of _him,_ everything would be over. But he wanted to help. And that was so fucking nice of him I couldn't stand it. I needed to get out of there. Not only was I already late, I couldn't focus on anything while I was with Pancho. "I- uh-" I stammered, and stupidly finished, "I have to. Work. Bye."

I grabbed my keys and jacket and quickly and was about to leave, but Pancho grabbed my forearm and interrupted, "Wait."

"What?" I sighed. As much as I wanted to focus on the fact that his hand was getting dangerously close to holding mine, I really had to go to work.

"Don't go to work today?" he begged, "We're finally okay again, and I'll miss you, and-"

"Look, I wish I could stay, too," I cut him off, "But I really have to go. I'll come home for lunch, okay?"

Pancho pouted for a few seconds, then conceded, "Fine. That's fair, I guess."

"I gotta go now. I'll see you in a few hours though." I headed towards the door, and shouted a goodbye to him and Bad Twin on my way out the door.

All the way to work, there was this weird struggle going on in my brain between wanting to have stayed home and spent time with Pancho all day, and not wanting to see him at all for the rest of my life. It was seemingly impossible to do anything around him without embarrassing myself, and I couldn't get my mind off him. My thought were filled with the dream, how he was sleeping in my bed and staring at me in the kitchen, and how he was always fucking flirting with me (although, if he was being honest when we were fighting, apparently didn't even mean anything), and how he made everything worse, but so much better. It was almost like he was _trying_ to drive me crazy. I wondered for a split second if somehow he knew, if he had picked up on how I was acting, and if he had, what would he say? But I pushed that thought out of my mind. I didn't want him to know, did I? No, I decided; we had just fixed things between us and I would hate myself forever if I ruined that with whatever the hell I was feeling. I didn't even know what was going on in my own head. I couldn't just wake up one morning and suddenly be head-over-heels _crushing_ (or whatever the hell this was) on my unfairly cute, train wreck, ex-client, current roommate, could I? Sighing as I turned into the parking lot, I realized that this had somehow been going on for at least a month.

I sat in my car for a couple of minutes in the parking lot, both thinking and trying not to think. I was already late, but I needed to collect myself before I went into the building, where my dumb-ass coworkers wouldn't give me a break about Pancho. For half a second, I considered how easy it would be to just turn the car around and go back home. I didn't want to go to work, and I didn't want to have to meet a client afterward, and I just wanted to go home. Spend some time with Bad Twin for the first time in a while. Spend some time with Pancho, even. Although it felt like I couldn't function right around him, the week we'd spent hating each other had made me realize what a big role he'd come to play in my everyday life. And I missed him. He had said how much he missed me while I was at work, and I missed him, too.

It was a little weird to think back on everything we'd done in the past month or so; there had been the fight of course, and before that the soup, and then his withdrawals and his short-lived job at McDonald's, and our shopping trip, and that first night where he kissed me and he woke me up to talk, and even before that, when he showed up at my house for the first time. I tapped my keys against the dashboard, realizing that I hadn't really thought about that first day in a while. Sure, my mind had been on the wire and stuff more than I would've like it too lately, but I had pushed out of my mind the walk home from the lake, and the crying (why the fuck did I cry so much?), and all the thinking he had been dead. I exhaled slowly and a little shakily as I leaned down and rested my head on the steering wheel. He had almost died. God. I wouldn't have ever forgiven myself if he had. So many things would be different now, too. I wouldn't have ever fallen asleep to the scent of mint and the soft lull of snoring, or have somebody actually _miss me_ while I was away. I wouldn't be laughing as much, or smiling as much, but also probably not cringing and blushing as much. Either way, I didn't want to think about Pancho drowning in the lake anymore. Focusing on life _after_ Pancho started living with us would be the best idea. After I got home and cried, and after he turned out to not be dead after all, and showed up on our porch naked, and- _fuck._ I had forgotten about that.

That was definitely _not_ something I wanted to be thinking about right before work. Still, I couldn't get it out of my head, just like every other thought involving Pancho that popped into my head. I almost cursed myself for looking away so quickly when the situation had presented itself, but then remembered that I really wished I wasn't having feelings for Pancho at all, and that all I was doing was making it worse. I sighed heavily, grabbed my things, and got out of the car. As I walked into work, all I could think was, _What the fuck am I going to do?_


	10. mess is mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is. really long. the longest one yet. but it was really really fun to write so here it is :[]

_"Please_ stay home today?"

"I already told you, I wish I could, but I have to work." I pulled my jacket on, glancing at Pancho as I did.

"But it's my _birthday."_

I sighed. I really, really, wished I could stay home. I felt terrible for going to work on Pancho's birthday, but I couldn't just skip work altogether. He was only making me feel worse by whining at me about it, which was almost certainly his goal, but there was nothing I could do. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. We can do whatever you want for lunch, though, I promise. Will you please let me leave now?" I asked.

He crossed his arms and scrunched his face up at me. "Fine, I'll see you at lunch, then. But I'll miss you," he complained.

It wouldn't even be four hours before I saw him. Why would he miss me? I tried my best not to get hopeful and read into it too much. "I'll only be gone for a couple of hours, Pancho."

"I'll still miss you! I guess you should go now, you don't want to be late or whatever," he said reluctantly.

"Okay, see you in a few hours." I started on my way out. "Oh, and happy birthday!" I called to him before I shut the door.

When I came home for lunch, I was already exhausted from work. The questions about Pancho from my coworkers never seemed to cease, and ever since my dream they made me even more flustered. It was hard to avoid my thoughts when everyone always wanted to know about my "boyfriend" and how things were with my "fiance." Today was especially obnoxious, because once I mentioned that it was Pancho's birthday, they kept insisting that I go home and spend the day with him. It became increasingly difficult to focus on work, which I'm sure was their intention.

It was a good thing my lunch break came when it did, because I was just about fed up enough to leave anyway. On my way out of the building, the lady who had said it was "a shame" that Pancho wasn't my boyfriend a couple weeks ago had stopped me right as I was at the door.

"Hey there!" she greeted with a red lipstick-painted smile, "You finally going home for his birthday?"

I sighed, glancing at the door, anxious to get out of there. "We're just going to lunch, I'm coming back after that."

She "tsk"ed and shook her head, putting a hand on my shoulder that I pushed off. "Just go home," she continued, "You've already put in half a day, we'll cover for you if anyone asks where you are. It's your boyfriend's birthday, for crying out loud, spend some time with him!"

"He's not my boyfriend," I muttered, even though it wouldn't make a difference, and even though part of me really wanted him to be. That god damn dream had really messed everything up. "But yeah. I don't know. I still have to go."

"Alright, have fun at lunch," she waved goodbye and smiled as I left the building. The only thing I could think was that her smile didn't even compare to Pancho's. She just looked like she was trying too hard to be polite, but Pancho's smile lit up the entire room, and it was hard to not smile back. I slapped my palm against my forehead. I really needed to stop thinking like this about him, and just try to forget about the dream and how nice it had felt to hold him and kiss him and- I was just making everything worse.

Still, though, I sighed in relief when I got home, turned off the car, and went inside. Bad Twin was asleep, and Pancho was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, knees drawn up to his chest as he flipped through TV channels. He didn't see me at first, as he was momentarily absorbed in whatever was on TV before he switched it again, and I felt another pang of guiltiness that he was spending his birthday all alone like this. He was wearing jeans, one sock, and the shirt he had taken from me but he had, for once, rolled up the sleeves.

Honestly, he looked kind of sad. I hoped that at least me being home would cheer him up some. I cleared my throat to get him to look up at me, and I couldn't stop myself from blushing (which I was really getting sick of) when his face lit up.

"Bedussey! You're home!" he beamed.

"Yeah, I am. Happy birthday, man," I laughed. The way he was grinning at me was making my stomach do this weird somersaulting thing that I hated, but all I could think was that it was so nice to see him happy. That was the smile I had been thinking about earlier, the one that lit up the whole room.

"Thanks," he smiled at me, "I think it's just you and me for lunch, pretty boy. Bad Twin's not getting up."

Rolling my eyes at "pretty boy," I responded, "Yeah, I don't think he's coming with. You should, uh, get some shoes and another sock on so that we can go."

He looked down at his feet, then back up at me. The expression on his face almost read like he hadn't known he was only wearing one sock. "Right. Yeah. I'll be back."

He left me alone in the living room with Bad Twin, who was still asleep and didn't look like he'd be waking up any time soon. Poor Pancho. I felt terrible for leaving him at home with my brother for his birthday. I had hoped that Bad Twin would at least play one of those first-person shooter games with him that they did together sometimes, but here he was, asleep on the couch. This was my fault, really. That lipstick lady was right. I should be spending time with Pancho on his birthday, regardless of whether or not he was my boyfriend.

"Alright, let's go." Pancho interrupted my stream of thoughts, just as I decided that I would take the rest of the day off. "Where to?"

"That's your choice, man, remember? I promised you," I reminded him.

He thought for a second, shifting his weight from foot to foot. I glanced down, noticing that he was wearing his old snow boots again. Why, when he had other shoes, I didn't know. But I knew better then to question it; I'd end up getting some shitty answer that would leave me even more confused. I looked up, and he was chewing on his bottom lip again. I couldn't fucking stand it when he did that, it always made me so flustered and especially after that god damn dream, it was even worse. "I don't know," he complained after thinking for a bit. "I choose that you choose."

I sighed. He was impossible. "Pancho, c'mon, it's _your_ birthday. I'm not gonna pick where we get lunch, that's up to you."

He sighed right back, doing that thing where he scrunched up his face. "I don't know, though! Anything sounds good."

"Okay, then what sounds the best? We'll go anywhere you want." I silently hoped he wouldn't pick something expensive and high-end, like Bad Twin used to do every time we actually went out to lunch instead of saying we would and then ditching our plans for shitty sandwiches.

But this was Pancho picking lunch, so I'm not really sure why I was surprised when he gave it some more thought and finally said, "Subway."

I blinked. "Subway? The shitty sandwich place?"

He nodded, a smile spreading across his face as he put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "I fucking love Subway, man."

I shook my head in disbelief. He could pick anywhere he wanted for lunch on his birthday, and he picked Subway? I found myself almost wishing he had picked some fancy place instead, but it was his birthday, and I'd told him we'd go anywhere. And I hated it, but it was really hard to argue with him when he was smiling like that.

"Yeah, alright. Sure," I agreed, pinching the bridge of my nose, "It's your birthday."

We made our way out to the car, Pancho leading the way instead of trailing behind me like he usually did. He had this spring in his step that I hadn't see before, and as much as I wanted to ignore it, it was annoyingly cute. Just like everything else about him seemed to be since a couple of days ago. He pulled the handle of the car door a couple of times before I unlocked the car, smile still plastered across his face. The car ride was nothing out of the ordinary; Pancho turned on the radio and switched it to that oldies station he loved. He did his half-singing, half-shouting thing along to whatever song was playing, which he, of course, knew the words to. I never really gave it much thought before; it had just kind of been an annoying noise in the background while I was trying to focus on driving. Now, though, it just made him even more frustratingly cute. Maybe he knew how terrible he sounded, or maybe he didn't, but either way, he really didn't seem to care. He was incredibly off-key, either held the notes too long or cut them short, and just overall sounded, well, bad. But the smile he'd had on his face since I'd said hello to him was so sweet, and I couldn't bring myself to tell him to shut up. It was a good thing the drive was short.

Pancho was practically bouncing with excitement as we walked towards the entrance. "Man, I haven't had Subway in so long," he bubbled, "I'm so excited, you have no idea."

I raised my eyebrows at him. "Yeah?" I'd never been a fan of Subway at all. Every ingredient looked wilted and sprayed with chemicals, and I never understood why I would go out and buy a sandwich when I could make a perfectly good one in my own kitchen. Nothing about Pancho made sense, but his weird thing with fast food never ceased to puzzle me.

Inside, I just ended up getting some cheap salad and a drink, and stood by the soda fountain, watching Pancho decide what was going on his sandwich. It didn't look like anything good. I tried not to pay too much attention, but paid for our food and let him pick out a table. The whole time we were standing next to each other, I kept noticing him glancing at me and taking his hands in and out of his pockets. He looked like he wanted to say something, but never did. We sat down at the cleanest table in the restaurant, which was still littered with crumbs. Pancho mentioned again how much he loved Subway, and I just smiled weakly at him. I wasn't gonna try to convince him that the food was not that great. I knew damn well enough to choose my battles, and that was definitely not a topic I needed to be fighting for at the moment. Besides, that unfairly amazing grin had slid back onto his face, and I couldn't think right when was smiling like that, much less try to argue with him.

It was kind of nice, eating lunch with just the two of us. Honestly, it was almost _too_ nice. Half of me wanted to pretend that we were on a date, and half of me was trying to get the other half to pull itself together. Sooner or later, I'd either have to stop trying altogether and just accept the fact that Pancho was making my head spin and my cheeks flush, or I'd figure out a way smother my feelings enough for them to go away completely. At this point, I wasn't sure what I wanted. Whatever happened, the situation with Pancho was never going to be anything close to normal. I'd fucked up my life far too much for me to hope for any kind of typical _relationship_ with anyone, let alone Pancho. God, he was fucked up, too. Nothing could ever happen between us, and the sooner I moved on and accepted that fact, the better.

I noticed I was spacing out when Pancho kicked me under the table to get my attention. He had a smudge of what looked like mustard on the corner of his mouth. "Whatcha thinkin' about, pretty boy?"

"Hm?" I asked distractedly, "Oh, um, nothing." I leaned back in my chair. "What's on your sandwich?"

He finished chewing a bite, then answered, "Banana peppers, cheddar cheese, and, uh, mustard."

I tried to hide how much I was cringing, probably with not much success. He was just so _weird._ There probably wasn't anyone else on the whole planet who got banana peppers, cheddar cheese, and mustard on their sandwich. _I_ couldn't even figure out why I liked him so much.

We drove home after lunch, only to find the house empty. Bad Twin, apparently, had left. Who knows where he went. Pancho and I took advantage of the couch while it was available, and sat in silence for a while until he mumbled, "I guess you have to go back to work now." He was looking down dejectedly at his shoes, arms folded, eyebrows drawn together.

I realized I had forgotten to tell him that I was staying home. "What? Oh, nah, I decided I'll just stay gone for the rest of the day," I smiled at him.

He perked up instantly at this. There was that smile again, that big, bright grin that could have lit up the whole block and made me want to just do anything he asked me to. "Really? You're really staying home?" he asked, more him making sure of the situation than actually asking me.

_Why did he have to be so cute?_ "Yeah," I laughed, "It's your birthday, man, I should be home."

He almost looked like he was trying to not come off as excited as he was, and it wasn't working because if anything his eyes had lit up even more. "Damn right," he laughed, "you should be home on my birthday. And you're gonna be. God, I'm so. I'm so fucking happy."

"Y'know? I'm happy too," I admitted, loosening my tie, making a mental note to change out of my work clothes, and smiling at him. He blinked a couple times and glanced away for a second, and for half a second I could have sworn I saw the lightest flush creep across his cheeks, but he was back to grinning again in an instant and I was smiling back because it was impossible not to, and I was wondering if I had imagined the whole thing altogether. God, whenever I was around him I ended up smiling so much more than usual. His enthusiasm seemed to be infectious, in a way. You couldn't help but feel at least a little better about anything troubling you when he was in such a good mood. Of course, it was him and his frustratingly endearing personality and annoyingly nice face that was driving me insane, so it almost made things worse. I did my best to turn myself away from thinking too much about him while he was sitting right next to me, and asked, "So are we going to need to go to the store or whatever? I mean, what kind of cake are you gonna want?"

Pancho's grin faded a bit as he leaned back into the couch thoughtfully. He sat there quietly for a couple of seconds, sniffing a couple of times, and then shrugged and offered up, "I don't know, birthday cake?"

I sighed. I should have seen this answer coming, in retrospect. "Birthday cake? What _kind_ of birthday cake, man?"

Pancho shrugged again, with a confused, almost startled look on his face. "I don't know? I haven't had a birthday cake in forever, so I don't know?"

Maybe it was just how I had been feeling about him, or maybe it was the way he said that like he was perfectly used to the fact, but there was something about the fact that he hadn't had a birthday cake in so long he didn't even know what kind he wanted that was really sad. If there was anyone who deserved a birthday cake, it was him. "Well, you should figure it out, 'cause I'm gonna make you a birthday cake," I decided, "and it's gonna be a damn good one, too."

He tried to argue with me about this, insisting that I really didn't have to. I finally convinced him there was no dissuading me from baking him a cake, and he said, "I mean, if pretty boy's set on baking me a cake, well. I won't stop you." He had that typical smirk.

I rolled my eyes to fight off the blush that was threatening to show on my face. Ignoring his last comment, I asked, "So should we go to the store now? Is there anything else you wanna do?"

He thought for a couple of seconds, biting his lip (which I was desperately trying not to pay attention to), before he answered, "Let's go to the store in, like, an hour. We should play video games."

I hadn't played any of Bad Twin's games before; just watched or listened while he, or Pancho, or both of them, played. Honestly, I really didn't care about them, but if that was what Pancho wanted to do on his birthday? "Yeah, sure. Why not," I agreed, shrugging.

"Fuck yes." He leaned across me to grab the remote from the arm of the couch, and turned on the TV. For the second where he was leaning across me and fumbling to pick up the remote, I felt my heartbeat quicken up a bit because he was so close to me, even if our proximity really shouldn't have bothered me that much, seeing as we slept next to each other every night. And our sleeping situation was really becoming kind of a problem the last couple of nights, ever since that god damn dream, because in my head I couldn't get over the fact that he was lying _right next to me_ with his face only a couple inches from my own, and only wearing a t-shirt and boxers. And the worst nights were where he was wearing the shirt he had taken from me, the one that drove me crazy when he wore it even _before_ things had gotten so complicated, the one he was wearing right now as he set up the video game. "Which one do you wanna play?" he asked, "Bad Twin's got a lot."

"You pick," I reminded him, "I really don't care."

Pancho grinned and got up off the couch to sift through the stack of games next to the TV. "Man, I never get to pick. His first-person shooter game is fun and all, but I win every time." He drew his eyebrows together as he studied one of the cases, holding it up for me to see. "Dude, your brother plays fucking _Sims?_ That's so," he paused to laugh a little, "that's so funny. And what's this, some karaoke shit? Wow." He shook his head, smiling to himself. Honestly, it was kind of funny, but considering Bad Twin liked romcoms, soap operas, and American Idol, I wasn't surprised at all. Pancho looked through a couple more games, then apparently found one, because his eyes lit up and he popped open the case. "Dude, fuck yes. We should play Mario Kart. I'm even better at racing games than shooting games. And I fucking love Mario Kart."

I did my best to raise my eyebrows and shrug, even though I couldn't help but think that the fact that he was so excited about playing Mario Kart was really cute. Even if I had never been good at video games at all, I was starting to look forward a bit to playing with him. "Yeah, sure. I'm cool with that."

Pancho took a long time picking out his character and vehicle, but I was too busy staring at him absentmindedly to notice what he picked. I really didn't care about mine, so I let him pick for me. He made me be Princess Peach, and gave me a kart. Basically, I let him choose everything. I knew nothing about the game, so it was a lot easier this way, and to my benefit. He was so absorbed in the game that I could just look at him. There wasn't a lot of time for me to do that without him noticing, because he moved around so much that he'd catch me staring, and I didn't want that happen. But when I got the chance, god. He was so gorgeous. The line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, his always-messy hair, his eyes, which seemed so bright today, the tiny creases around them, and the circles under them. I couldn't even find the will to mentally slap myself out of thinking it, he looked so good. All I wanted to do anymore was pull him in and kiss him like I'd done in the dream. Fuck, I was so screwed.

When he finally got everything all set up, he turned to hand me a controller. I took it and he started explaining the controls to me, but that was hard to focus on when his hands were so close to mine. We started off on a course that I think Pancho said was a gold mine. I couldn't even figure out how to start (he had to remind me), and I didn't even finish my second lap. I placed twelfth. Actually, I placed twelfth every time. He kept picking these really difficult tracks, but when I asked if there were any easier ones, he told me, "Yeah, but those are for babies." There was a lot of swearing and yelling at the computerized drivers from Pancho, and a lot of confusion from me.

After three rounds, he changed it so that it was just the two of us on the track. Even then, I kept coming in second. I was improving, but he was a total pro at it. The only time I won was on Koopa Cape, which was satisfying until he told me he'd let me win, two rounds later, right in the middle of a game. "Are you kidding me?" I yelled, "Why the hell would you let me win?" I kicked him from my side of the couch.

He kicked me back. "I dunno man," he replied distractedly as he leaned towards me to steer.

I leaned over and shoved him, throwing him off-course. At this point, I was hardly even trying to steer.

"Hey!" he shouted, shoving me.

"'Hey,' yourself! You can't just _let me_ win." I punched him in the shoulder, and then he punched me back. After more punching and kicking and shoving, neither of us really trying to to hurt the other one, he went for my sides and started fucking _tickling_ me. And if I hadn't been ticklish, then I could have rolled my eyes and shoved him away, but god damn me, I was ticklish, and I started laughing.

"So pretty boy is ticklish, is he?" Pancho said with his signature smile-smirk as he tossed his controller to the side and climbed on top of me, straddling my legs and attacking my sides with tickles. For half a second, I'd been able to focus on what he'd just done, and that he was leaning over me and he looked _really good_ outlined against the ceiling, and that he _felt_ really good, and my heart was racing and he was so close that I could easily have closed the distance and kissed him and that I _really_ wanted to do that, but then he had to go and tickle me. Everything surreal about that moment disappeared. "I can't fucking believe it," Pancho was laughing, the fucking sadist, "you're ticklish."

If I'm gonna be honest, it was embarrassing how hard I was laughing, so much that my stomach hurt and I couldn't breathe very well, and that every time I tried to bat his hands away it didn't do any good at all. "What the hell!" I gasped in-between fits of laughter. The little part of my brain that wasn't in pieces from the tickling was on red alert, screaming at me _"He's touching you! He's touching you a_ lot! _His eyes are so bright right now! Look at how happy he is! He's_ touching _you!"_

"You're fucking hopeless, man," he grinned. I kind of hated to admit it, but he was right. I was still in my work clothes, and tears were starting to well up in my eyes from laughing so hard, and my sides were starting to get sore.

"Fuck you," I choked out, trying to push him off. But he had pinned me down, and I was trying really hard to think about anything but that. "C'mon," I managed to get out in between giggles, "knock it off, man."

"Oh, you want me to stop?" he laughed. God, he was being such a dick. But just when I thought he couldn't do anything worse, he stopped, with his hands on the couch on either side of my head, face only a few inches from mine, looking straight into my eyes.

My heart was beating at about a million miles an hour, and my face was probably about as red as a tomato. He still had that smirk, curving his lips upward just at the corner, and this mischievous look in his eyes, like he totally had a plan for what he was going to do with me. His legs were straddling my hips, and I was entirely helpless. It was _really_ hard to think about anything but how close we were, and how I could so easily kiss him right then. He was still staring at me when I noticed Bad Twin walk into the living room. I didn't know how we hadn't heard him walk in, but I broke eye contact with Pancho, and there he was, in a full suit, standing by the TV, staring at us. His mouth was slightly open, like he was about to say something, but I spoke first. "This isn't, um. It's not, uh, we weren't-"

"Yeah, no, we just, um," Pancho stuttered as he sat up and moved over to the other side of the couch.

"It's not what it looks like," I attempted to reason. I took a cue from Pancho and pushed myself up.

"I didn't say anything," Bad Twin said nonchalantly. "Now get off of my couch."

Pancho jumped up off of the couch like it was on fire, and his face was so flushed, which was starting to bother me because it was really cute. I don't think I'd ever seen him more flustered, not even after he had just went and kissed me that first night. Our fight, maybe, but that had been more anger than anything else. He mumbled something under his breath and ran a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, yeah, um. We were just, um. Just about to leave, anyway," I continued stuttering as I stood up off the couch.

Bad Twin snorted, not even bothering to change out of his suit before he collapsed back down on the couch. "If that's your 'just about to leave,' I'd damn sure hate to see your 'staying for a little bit.'"

"Y'know what, fuck you, that didn't even make any sense," I shot at him, frustrated at myself for being so flushed, and for almost wishing Bad Twin hadn't walked in, and for actually feelings for Pancho of all people in the first place.

My brother just laughed and picked up one of the controllers we'd left laying on the ground, finishing the race with a bored expression. "You guys didn't even bother to pause the fucking game."

I rolled my eyes. "We're going to the store to get stuff for Pancho's birthday cake, and I'm not getting anything for you. Bye."

"I thought _you_ were Pancho's birthday cake, man," he shouted at me as I walked out of the room and up the stairs, not even checking to see if Pancho was behind me. Looking at Pancho was the last thing I needed to be doing; I was already flustered enough as it was.

"Fuck you," I yelled back over my shoulder. He was terrible. Pancho was trailing behind me, like he always was. He was still blushing, and it was killing me. I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if Bad Twin hadn't walked in, if he'd just gotten home a couple minutes later. Would Pancho and I have kissed? Did he even want to do anything, or was he just fucking with my head? He sure had a tendency to do that. For as long as I'd known him, that had been the case. That had been especially true ever since he'd started living with us.

"Are we gonna walk to the store?" he asked me, stopping in the driveway.

I sighed. Walking was probably the best option, since I didn't feel like driving, and it would take longer for us to get back home if we walked. That meant longer until we saw Bad Twin again. "Yeah," I answered, "Sure."

We walked to the store mostly in silence, not even able to look at each other without Pancho's face flushing again, and me clearing my throat and ducking my head to hide my own blush. He broke the silence once to stutter out, "Um. Earlier, I, uh, um, never mind."

"Yeah, let's just. Not, uh..." I trailed off. We were almost at the store anyway. I tried to start thinking about what kind of cake he'd want in an attempt to take my mind off of what happened on the couch earlier, but somehow ended up thinking about how I didn't even know how old he was. I made a mental note to ask him later, when we could look at each other without me clearing my throat and him blushing again.

I could hear Pancho shuffling through the leaves as we walked, and going out of his way to kick a rock or pine cone off of the sidewalk. We didn't say another word until we got to the store, and I risked looking at him again. It proved to be a fatal mistake because the angle of the sun was hitting him just right and I swear to god, he was glowing. He was looking down at his snow boots with an expression on his face that I couldn't quite read. As much as I wanted to pull him down and memorize every little detail of his face, I forced myself to look away again before I actually did that. I hadn't gotten to look at him nearly enough earlier even though his face had been right above mine and much, much closer.

The store wasn't too crowded, which was great, and as I grabbed one of the plastic baskets by the front door, I finally cleared my throat and turned to him again, hoping that when I talked it would finally be something coherent. "So, um," I began quietly, "We gotta get stuff for the cake and, uh, what are you gonna want for dinner? Or, y'know. Whatever."

Pancho shrugged, still looking at the space right next to my head, refusing to face straight toward me. "I don't know," he said and then sniffed, "That pizza that Bad Twin ordered a couple months ago, maybe, or spaghetti or something." A few minutes into our trip to the store, while we were still trying to find the baking supplies (these god damn stores constantly rearranging their products so it was impossible to find anything), he changed his mind. "Or maybe we could have breakfast-dinner." The way he said it made it sound like there was a question in his voice, like he was asking my permission.

"Yeah, uh, sure, I mean. Whatever you want. It's your birthday," I agreed, glancing down an aisle to see if I could find where all the cake ingredients were. I glanced back at him and he was smiling just little bit, still not looking at me but looking the happiest he had since Bad Twin had broken us up on the couch.

"Cool, so, like. Does this mean you'll make eggs again? I know we just had them last week, but..." he trailed off, chewing on his bottom lip again, god dammit.

"Yeah, if that's what you want?" I looked at him, and even under the florescent lighting in the store, he looked amazing.

He nodded enthusiastically, smiling at me and finally making eye contact. "If it's not too much work, I mean..."

"Not at all," I smiled at him (and I could have sworn I saw him blush again). "We have eggs, but I should pick up another carton. I think we're running low," I said, mostly talking to myself. I proceeded down the aisle, looking up and down to try and find where the supplies I needed were. I finally found the basic flour and sugar after walking past the rows of Betty Crocker and Pilsbury cake mixes. But when I opened my mouth to ask Pancho what kind of cake I should make, he was a few steps back, staring at the expanse of boxed cake mix.

He bent down to pick up a box, then walked over to me and handed me the box. "This cake," he stated.

The box was labeled "Funfetti," and had a picture of the Pilsbury dough boy and what looked like white cake with some kind of rainbow-sprinkle stuff on the inside. "Really?" I asked him, eyebrows raised.

"...Yeah? Why not?"

"I just..." I didn't finish the sentence. "No, y'know what, I told you I was making you a cake, I'm making you a real cake. From scratch. And it's gonna be a fucking great cake. Not this fake box stuff. How do you feel about yellow cake and chocolate frosting?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds amazing, actually. Are you sure?" He looked kind of surprised, which was really cute.

"'Course I'm sure," I affirmed. "Now help me get ingredients and stuff."

Shopping took a relatively short time after we figured out where everything was. Sure, Pancho wanted to try all the free samples and complained about not having a cart (he said wanted to ride on the back of it while I pushed him around the store), but we got all the ingredients we needed and headed back to the house to get started on baking.

I was glad we were finally able to look at each other without becoming terribly awkward, and even talk without a mess of stuttering replacing our words. We walked slowly home, Pancho insisting on carrying the bag of groceries. As expected, Bad Twin was on the couch watching a soap opera when we got back home. He tilted his head to look at us, and there was a couple seconds where nobody said anything and the silence was nothing short of frosty. Finally, he adjusted his sunglasses and commented, "Well, you two were certainly gone for a while."

"Because we fucking walked, okay?" I sighed. I was really getting tired of Bad Twin making fun of us. It was really uncomfortable, and it made it really hard to stop thinking about all the "what if"s concerning what would have happened if he hadn't gotten home when he did. And not only that, but it brought flashbacks from when we were kids and he would tease me about every little thing I did, and childhood memories were something I didn't want to spend any amount of time dwelling on. Next to me, Pancho shifted his weight from on foot to the other, sniffing a couple times. He kept glancing over at me, and he was blushing again.

Bad Twin just snorted, turning his attention back to the TV. _"Sure,"_ he muttered.

Without another word, Pancho shuffled into the kitchen and set the groceries on the counter, and I went to change my clothes. I'd been wearing my work clothes all day, but I didn't want to get cake batter on them. While I tossed my tie onto the bed, knowing I should put it away properly but not really caring, I considered what all this must be like for Pancho. I mean, he was obviously flustered when Bad Twin said things about us, and I didn't blame him at all. But what exactly was going through his head? I was torn between needing to know and never wanting to know.

He was in the kitchen when I finished changing, unpacking the groceries and lining up all the ingredients in neat lines on the counter. "Can I help with the cake?" he asked eagerly while I got out the cookbook, and even though I had my doubts about his culinary skills, I couldn't bring myself to turn him down.

Letting Pancho help with the cake turned out to be a terrible mistake. He wasn't really helping at all; if anything he was being incredibly distracting while I did most of the work. While I was reading the recipe, he smeared flour on my face. And when I asked him to crack the eggs, he ended up with raw egg all over his hands and shards of shell in the mixing bowl that took forever to pick out. He had, obviously, never baked anything successfully before in his life.

We didn't even start the frosting, because when we pulled the cake out of the oven, it was flat. We stood there staring at the sad cake for a couple of minutes while I tried to determine what could have gone wrong. Pancho's birthday cake was ruined, and I felt terrible. He told me he hadn't had a birthday cake in forever, and I'd gone and ruined what was probably his first birthday cake in years. I couldn't remember anything I could have done to make it flat, and I spent about two minutes retracing my steps to try and figure out what I did. It finally occurred to me that Pancho could have done something while I wasn't looking. "Pancho, did you add anything to the batter?" I asked.

He ruffled his hair, and looked sheepishly down at his feet. "I, uh," he stuttered, "I added half a cup of sugar while you were getting the vanilla from the cupboard, 'cause I wanted the cake to be extra sweet, and I'm really sorry I ruined the cake, I didn't mean to, I just-"

"It's okay," I interrupted. Poor Pancho looked so upset, and even though I was frustrated, I couldn't help but forgive him. I just felt sorry. He wasn't entirely wrong, of course, adding sugar would definitely make it sweeter. But he'd ruined his own birthday cake. I wished there was some way I could make it up to him, but it was already four o' clock, and there wasn't enough time to start another cake. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to think of what we could do. "Do you wanna go buy a cake from the store or something?" I suggested, "Or there's this bakery about fifteen minutes away that's good, or… I dunno, man. I'm sorry."

"We could get donuts?" he offered, biting his lip again.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a donut. "Yeah, that sounds perfect, actually, if you want donuts we should go get some. There's a place over by the Chinese restaurant, I think."

A slow smile was starting to spread across his face, and he nodded. "Yeah. Let's just go now."

I agreed, and tossed the ruined cake into the trash before we headed out again. Luckily, Bad Twin was too engrossed in whatever shit was on TV to make any comments as we passed by. "Hey, sorry again about your cake," I apologized as we ducked into the car, "Today just keeps getting fucked up, huh?" Between Bad Twin falling asleep on the couch while he was home alone, and then making everything awkward for a bit after he got home, and then the cake, I was nervous to see what bad thing would happen next.

Pancho laughed as he buckled his seat belt, and pressed a couple of buttons on the radio even though the car wasn't even on yet. "Nah, it's all been my fault. And honestly, this has been the funnest birthday I've had in a long time."

I don't know what could have happened on his previous birthdays to make this mess of a day the most fun birthday he'd had in a while, but I was glad at least that he was feeling good about it. "Honestly, most of it was my brother's fault, but..." I trailed off as we backed out of the driveway. Pancho turned up the volume on his oldies station, refusing to believe that it was anyone's fault besides his.

The drive was uneventful besides Pancho's awful singing, but when we pulled into the parking lot and I was about to get out of the car, he stopped me. "Hey, wait," he said, "You still have flour on your face." He reached over and brushed it off, and studied me for a couple seconds with his fingers still lightly touching my cheek before drawing his hand back quickly. I could have sworn he was blushing again. "Fixed it," he mumbled.

I wondered if he could feel how hot my face had gotten. It was only a couple of seconds, but it felt like more, and I wished it had been. His skin was soft on mine, and I got the chance to look at him closer than usual again. The patterns in his eyes, the tan of his skin; god, he was so beautiful. I wished he would've taken the opportunity to lean in and kiss me again like he had on that first night, only I wouldn't pull away. I would keep kissing him like I had in that dream, and we could fall asleep in my bed together, and it wouldn't feel weird for him to sleep next to me. It would feel right. But that didn't happen. I cleared my throat, ducked my head, and thanked him, and we got out of the car and walked into the donut shop.

The interior of the shop was a little weird in the evening, since we were the only ones there. I was surprised they were even still open, to be honest. Pancho held the door open for me as we walked in, which I couldn't decide if I loved or hated. He tried to convince me that we should get two boxes of donuts. "'Cause I'm turning twenty six, so twenty six donuts for my birthday!" he insisted.

_Twenty six,_ I repeated in my head. I wouldn't have to ask him after all. Even though I turned down his request, we did get a full baker's dozen. Pancho picked out most of them; a few cake donuts with frosting and sprinkles, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, powdered sugar, an apple fritter, and a cinnamon sugar one. I picked out two old-fashioned glazes and another powdered sugar one for myself, and two strawberry jelly-filled donuts along with one that had an orange glaze for Bad Twin. I paid, thanked the cashier, and she wished Pancho a happy birthday as we walked out of the store.

When we got home, Pancho insisted we eat our donuts in front of the TV with Bad Twin, and I reluctantly agreed to do so. My brother didn't make any snide comments about us, so I decided it might be okay to forgive him. I made eggs, as promised. It was the usual routine; Pancho staring at me and talking to me while I made them, then telling me they were the best eggs in the world. We ate our breakfast-dinner on the floor in the living room with Bad Twin, watching some romcom that I couldn't be bothered to remember the name of. I'd seen it before, I think, but it went on longer than I remembered. Around eleven o' clock, Pancho fell asleep, leaning against my shoulder. Bad Twin smirked at me, and I rolled my eyes back at him. I must have drifted off, because when I woke up, Pancho was still resting his head on my shoulder, and we were sitting on the floor. The TV was still on.


	11. the world is ugly

All day my coworkers wanted to know how Pancho's birthday went, what we did, what kind of cake he had (which I cringed at). By the end of the day I was so tired and exasperated with all their questions, I wished I had stayed home after lunch again. It didn't help that I was sore all day from sleeping on the floor. But at the very least, it was Friday, so once I met a client right after work, I could go home and relax, besides the couple of errands I needed to run.

When I got home, Pancho greeted me as usual, with lots of questions about work. He, of course, wanted to know every single little detail about this and that, how our current project was going, if my boss was being an asshole again, all of those things. It was kind of cute, actually, how he found everything about my mundane office job so interesting, and I found that venting about my coworkers felt great after having to deal with them all day.

He listened intently and nodded thoughtfully when I was finished, tapping his fingers on the pool table. "Did you remember to tell them all 'hi' for me?" he asked.

I sighed as I untied my shoes. I had remembered, but I hadn't done it. Every time I vaguely mentioned something that could possibly have some sort of remote connection with Pancho, my coworkers wouldn't stop talking about "us" for the whole day. "Yeah," I lied, "I told them, they say 'hi' back. They all love you."

Pancho smirked and sniffed. "I know," he paused, leaning against the pool table and watching me stand up after finishing with my shoes. "Anyway, I was meaning to ask, do you guys have any Halloween decorations? 'Cause we should put up some Hallowen decorations this weekend. I fucking love Halloween, man."

"Nah, we don't really get trick-or-treaters at our house," I replied. "We're sketchy, y'know. No one wants their kid trick-or-treating at the house with the shirtless guy and the coke dealer. And even if we did, I dunno, man. We don't really do holidays. I mean, Christmas, I guess, but other than that, we don't get too festive." I shrugged off my jacket and strolled into the living room, glancing behind me to see Pancho following. 

"Bad Twin!" Pancho called out, "Why the hell don't you guys have Halloween decorations?"

Bad Twin was blasting some obnoxious TV show, licking nacho cheese Dorito dust off his fingers. He looked annoyed that Pancho had interrupted whatever he was watching, and was probably rolling his eyes under the sunglasses he hardly ever took off. Not bothering to turn down the TV, he shouted over it, "We just don't, man. Nobody comes here to trick-or-treat." He paused to crunch into another chip. "Also, we're lazy."

"What'd I tell you?" I muttered, just loud enough for Pancho to hear.

Pancho sighed. I honestly didn't think he'd be so upset over Halloween decorations, but I guess I should've expected it. He was Pancho, after all. Nobody said anything for a few seconds, the TV blared on, and Pancho had his arms crossed and this look on his face like was thinking really hard about something. I was about to leave the room when he proposed, "What if _we_ went trick-or-treating?"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you kidding me? You're twenty six. I'm, like, almost a year and a half older than you. We're not going trick-or-treating." I wished I hadn't been so harsh on him, but it was difficult enough to disagree with him at all.

"Fine," he pouted. "We should at least get candy, though."

"Yeah, sure." I gave him a smile to attempt to make up for my lack of enthusiasm. "We could actually get some today," I offered. 

At the mention of this, his face lit up.

"Yeah, I gotta go to the laundromat, but if you wanna come with, we can pick up candy while we're out?"

"Fuck yes, I wanna come with. Laundromat plus candy plus pretty boy is, like, a fuckin' three-in-one bargain deal," he smirked.

A three-in-one bargain deal? What the fuck. He had to be messing with me on purpose. I pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping that my face wasn't as flushed as it felt. "Um. Yeah, okay. I'm gonna get ready to go." I started heading into my room to get changed, but stopped when I noticed Pancho was following me. "Pancho?" I asked, hoping he would get the hint and go back into the living room.

"Yeah?" he wondered, staring at me again.

"I'm getting changed."

"Yeah?" he echoed. I swear, he could be so oblivious sometimes.

"I'm getting changed. So. You can't follow me." I raised my eyebrows at him and took another step towards the door.

He blinked as if he just remembered that, and sniffed. "Oh. Sorry, right." Clearing his throat, he added, "I'll get the laundry and the quarters and stuff."

I nodded, and went into my room, closing the door behind me. I wasn't surprised that Pancho was excited about going to the laundromat, he always used to talk about how he used to go there with his girlfriend, and how much he missed her, and how much he missed the laundromat, and how he just really wanted to go the laundromat with her again. At the time, it had almost been a little sad, but he never really talked about her anymore. I figured this meant that he had gotten over her, or at least picked up on how little Bad Twin and I wanted to hear him lament over her.

After I finished changing and went back into the living room, I found Pancho trying to talk to Bad Twin about the color of his room. "...so were you going for more of a salmon?" he was asking. "Or more of, like, a bubblegum pink? Either way, it's fucking _awesome."_ Bad Twin looked like he was successfully tuning him out, which was best for both of them. Pancho had the bag of laundry in one hand, the detergent in the other, and he looked up at me and smiled when I came in. "Hey, do you know if you guys have any of those rolls of quarters?"

We probably did have quarter rolls somewhere, but we always lost them. Besides, I had quarters on me, so we could just use those, or the change machine at the laundromat if we needed to. I explained this to Pancho, we said goodbye to Bad Twin, and left for the laundromat.

It was a short drive, but I couldn't stop thinking about the way Pancho used to talk about his girlfriend. I knew it was ridiculous for me to get so hung up about it, since he hadn't said anything in over a month, and also since there was no chance for me to ever be involved with him in any way other than what we already were, but I couldn't help it. I found myself getting jealous. I'd never even met his girlfriend before, but I couldn't stand that she'd probably kissed him hundreds of times and the only opportunities I'd had to kiss him, I'd messed up. And the fact that she'd fucking kicked him out and broken up with him was so unfair. If I'd had the chance, if I'd been in her position, I don't think I ever would have let him go. He deserved so much better, with the way he smiled, and laughed, and buttoned up his shirts the wrong way, and stared at me, and really just everything about him.

He had rolled down the car window, and the mid-afternoon October sunlight that was coming through the clouds made him look even more amazing. The wind was blowing his hair just the right amount to make him have to brush it out of his eyes, and I had to remind myself to keep an eye on the road so I didn't run a red. It seemed like just as I thought I couldn't possibly make this any worse for myself, I did. I pulled into the parking lot of the laundromat, parked the car, and turned to look at Pancho. "You ready to go?" he asked.

There was something about the expression on his face that made my stomach flip, but somehow I managed to pull myself together enough to say, "Yeah, let's go."

The laundromat was a little crowded, but for a Friday afternoon I wasn't surprised. Pancho insisted on starting the machine, so I snagged a couple of chairs and watched him drop the quarters a few times before successfully starting the load of clothes. He was smirking as he sat down, elbowing me and commenting, "Hey, I'm pretty fuckin' good at this, huh?"

I raised my eyebrows at him, feeling myself smile a little bit. Everything about him was shining, even more than usual. He was leaning forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees, giving me this look like I was showering him with praise when I told him he could do all our laundry from now on. I still couldn't believe that his girlfriend kicked him out. You don't just push somebody like Pancho out of your life. I mean, sure he had been ridiculous when he first showed up at the house, what with his wigs and awful cargo shorts and cocaine lust, but getting to know him over the course of the last couple of months had honestly changed my entire life. Even though his withdrawals had been hard, getting off of the coke definitely made him a more likeable person. And I honestly just couldn't picture life without him anymore.

Pancho was running a hand through his hair, frowning a bit. "I need a haircut soon," he decided, almost saying it like it was more to himself to anyone in particular.

I didn't answer, just watched him play with his hair for a minute before he started up some new conversation with me. He just kept talking to me, about things that were on TV, what happened on his walk that he'd taken earlier that week while Bad Twin was taking a nap, how weird Bad Twin got after he took naps. The laundry only had about five minutes left to go when Pancho froze mid-sentence, looking just past me like he'd just seen a ghost. I turned around to see a girl with straightened blonde hair and heavy black eye makeup, holding two bags, looking at Pancho. He looked more anxious than I'd ever seen him. I turned back to him and asked, "Who is that? What's up, man?"

"We have to go. Now." He shook his head slightly, not breaking eye contact with her, clenching his palms so tight it looked like he was trying to break skin.

"What? The laundry is almost done, it's-" I broke off, finally realizing what was going on. She had to be Pancho's ex. I was about to drag him out of the laundromat with me when she started walking over to us, high heels clicking on the linoleum floor.

She handed Pancho one of the bags, holding it out like there was something dead in it. "I didn't think I'd ever get rid of these. Your things, you left them. Thank god I _finally_ ran into you here."

Pancho stared at the plastic bag she was holding with an expression of subdued horror, not saying anything and not making any move to take the bag. I felt awful for him. He looked terrified, and we were in the middle of the laundromat, and a couple of people were already starting to turn heads, thanks to the fact that she was talking unnecessarily loudly. One guy even took out his phone, holding it up like he was filming.

His girlfriend shook it at him, rolling her eyes. "Oh my god, take it. I don't want your shit around my house anymore."

Pancho sniffed, and took it from her. He rummaged through it a bit, and I couldn't really see what was in it, but it kind of looked like more plaid cargo shorts. After frowning and blinking a couple of times, he glanced up and asked quietly, "Where's my wallet?"

She looked like she'd been slapped, and folded her arms across her chest. "I give you your things that you never took from my place, and that's how you thank me?"

He sighed, and looked down again, obviously uncomfortable and fiddling with the handle of his bag. "Sorry, Mandy," he mumbled. "Thanks." He didn't even bother to mention that she hadn't even given him a chance to get clothes to wear before she kicked him out. I hoped he knew that none of it was his fault.

"Ugh, I can't even fucking believe you," she scoffed, rolling her eyes again and shifting her weight to one foot. "You're pathetic. Who the hell do you even live with now? I can't imagine you have your own place, you never could hold a job."

Pancho looked down at his shoes. "You're right," he said.

I couldn't believe it. He didn't deserve this. He deserved so much better, someone who didn't make him feel like everything was his fault, yell at him in the middle of the laundromat, make him clench his palms when they walked into the room. I didn't even care if it was me; that didn't matter, I just wanted him to be happy. That was the only thing that was important.

"Of course I'm right," she snapped. She paused to lick her perfectly glossed lips, then turned to me, and I felt myself flinch. "Oh," she said flatly, "Is this- are you living with him? Who even is that, your boyfriend?" She was bringing the attention of everyone in the laundromat to the two of them.

"Don't bring him into this, he doesn't have anything to do with this. You can't do that," he shot back. His voice was hushed.

My breath hitched. It was almost startling how quick he was to reply, considering the fact that he'd been stuttering out his sentences. He didn't have to say that. If I wasn't focused on how much I hated his girlfriend, I probably would have blushed. Well, his ex. Did he have to deal with this on a daily basis when they were together? How long had she been doing this? I couldn't stop thinking how unfair this was to him.

"Shut up, Pancho," she hissed. "Y'know, you could've at least taken your crap with you when you left. You're a loser. I can't believe I ever dated you."

Pancho shrunk back, leaning against the laundry machines. "I'm sorry," he said. He looked like he was about to cry. "Please, not right now, Mandy."

She seemed to be trying desperately not to smirk, with not much success. "Whatever. You're getting off easy this time. You should be thanking me."

"Thanks," his voice quavered, and he swallowed. He seemed tiny, like he was trying to make himself as small as possible so nobody could see him. Sadly, everyone _could_ see him, and every pair of eyes in the laundromat was fixed on them. The guy with his phone out was laughing behind his hand, and I wanted to punch him. It was bad enough that Pancho was in this situation, and now this guy had footage that he could show anybody.

I felt terrible for not stepping in and saying something, but I was completely numb. I hated her so much. Nobody was supposed to treat Pancho like this. I didn't know _how_ anybody could treat Pancho like this. I'd been an asshole while we were fighting, but he had been shouting right back. I hadn't cornered him in the middle of the laundromat and screamed at him in front of a small crowd. It just didn't make sense how you could see him smile or hear his laugh or listen to him talk and then be able to hurt him so badly. No wonder Pancho always thought everything was his fault, if this was the hell he had to go through.

Mandy laughed, and turned to me again. "I'd kick him out while you can," she advised, jerking her head toward Pancho. "He's the worst, and you're never gonna get rid of him. I swear, the best day of my life was when we broke up." She paused, and glanced at him like he was something gross she found on the bottom of her shoe. "His loss though. I was the best he's ever going to get."

That made my heart drop. Did she really think that? More importantly, did _he_ really think that? She was a fucking demon. I felt a million things I wanted to say to her burning the back of my throat, but none of them ever made it past my lips. Pancho made a quiet, sad, sound, a whimper almost, and held on to my arm. I thought my hand would fall off due to lack of circulation, he was gripping me so tight, but I'd never shake him off. The dryer beeped, and I turned away from Pancho and Mandy. I just wanted her to leave. We would get our laundry, and go get Halloween candy, and it would be okay eventually, but I just wanted her to leave. Pancho was biting his lip, and for a second he looked so much younger than twenty six. He looked so small. I just wanted him to be okay again.

After a few seconds, I got my wish. Mandy said she had her own laundry to do, and that she hoped she wouldn't see us around. I hoped we wouldn't see her, either. She flounced over to the other side of the laundromat, and I think I saw her toss her hair before I turned away.

Pancho was still gripping my arm, even as I opened the door of the dryer. I glanced at him, and he let go. It was killing me that I hadn't done something to make her stop. I'd wanted so much to step in, to say _anything,_ and I hadn't. I felt so useless. Pancho was sniffling, his head low and standing close to me so that his arm brushed against mine. I quickly shoved the clothes into the bag, not caring how wrinkled they got. Maybe I hadn't done anything earlier, but I could at least try to make him feel better after the fact. I pulled him in for a hug. He tensed up for a second, then relaxed, bringing his arms up to rest on the small of my back. It didn't matter how many people were staring at us. I leaned my head against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"No," I said, my voice muffled by the fabric of his shirt, "you don't have to be. There is absolutely nothing you have to apologize for." I sighed into his shoulder, then asked, "You wanna get out of here?"

He nodded, and I slowly let go of him. I wanted to grab his hand and pull him out of the laundromat with me, but I didn't have to. He reached for my arm again. I tried not to focus on how soft his skin was and how badly I needed to hold him and tell him that she was wrong and that he was fucking wonderful and he deserved so much better than her and everything would be okay. I just wanted to make everything okay for him. I wanted him to feel like he had fifteen minutes ago, before Mandy got there, when he was grinning and telling me about the documentary he had seen about the national parks and how he wanted to go to _all of them_ someday.

It probably took us less than a minute to get out to the car, but it felt like forever. Finally, though, we made it, and Pancho reluctantly let go of my arm. I didn't start the car right away, and we just sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, not saying anything. I kept trying to think of the best thing to say, but nothing sounded right.

Pancho was sniffling in the passenger seat, and when I looked over at him, his eyes were red-rimmed and he was staring at his hands, tears starting to slide down his face. My stomach was in knots. Seeing him like this was making me feel sick. And the thing that got me was that in the beginning, he had wanted her back. Had she really messed with him and manipulated him that much that he had wanted that kind of relationship back?

"Pancho," I said, then didn't finish. I just didn't know how to handle this. There was too much I wanted to say, and I didn't know how to say any of it.

He mumbled something that I couldn't hear, and then I asked him to repeat it, and he rubbed at his eyes and said a little louder, "She's right. I'm sorry, she's right."

I sighed. There wasn't anything I could say without the risk of saying too much, but I didn't even care. I couldn't stand to see him so sad. I put my hand on his forearm, tried not to worry about what he'd say, and looked up at him. "Pancho," I started, "she's not. She's not right. Actually, I don't think I've ever heard anyone more wrong." I paused, biting my lip and looking down for a second. "You don't deserve that, okay? You deserve better than her."

He was looking down at his hands still, hair hanging in his face and not meeting my gaze. And in that moment, I stopped thinking for once about everything that could possibly happen as an outcome of my actions and brushed his bangs out of his eyes, leaving my hand resting on his cheek for a second before I moved it back to my lap. I wanted to kiss him, and I could have, but it didn't matter. He was more important. When we finally made eye contact, I could see how red his eyes were, how his face was streaked with tears. His lip was trembling, though he was trying to hide it by biting down on it. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before he finally said, "You don't have to say that, it's okay, really, I-"

I lowered my voice to match his hushed tone. "No, it's not. She's not fair to you. None of this is your fault. If you're not gonna believe anything else I say right now, believe me when I say that."

There were still tears running down his cheeks, and his breath seemed shaky. He looked down again, then said, "Okay."

"Hey." I moved my hand that was hand resting on his forearm to his shoulder, and for the first time when I'd tried to comfort him, it didn't feel awkward. "I'm not gonna kick you out. You don't have to worry about that. It's okay."

He pursed his lips together and nodded. "Okay," he repeated. He was quiet for a minute, wiping his eyes again, then said a little louder, "Thank you."

I took my hand off his shoulder and tried to smile at him. "Of course." _You mean a lot to me,_ I didn't say, _It kills me when you're sad like this._ Instead, I started the car, and asked, "Are you still up for going to the store?"

Pancho nodded again, taking in a shuddering sigh, and straightened up a little, buckling his seatbelt and turning up the radio. Despite obviously looking like he had been crying, and I felt terrible for thinking like this while he was so distressed, but I couldn't help but notice again the way the light filtered through the windows made him look really nice. Sometimes I wondered why he called me "pretty boy," and not the other way around. But I shook myself out of it, reminding myself that this wasn't the time to be thinking of things like that. I needed to be thinking of ways to make him feel better.

The drive to the store was short and quiet. Pancho wasn't singing, which I found myself missing a little bit even though he sounded terrible, and he just looked out the window and turned up the radio a little bit when a song he especially liked came on. It seemed like he had stopped crying, but he was still sniffling a lot and was so silent it was concerning. There had to be some way outside of buying candy that I could make everything up to him. I kept wracking my brain trying to find some way to help him, but as hard as I tried, there wasn't anything I could think of that would immediately fix things. I parked the car, and sat there in the parking lot with him for a few seconds before I turned the car off and got out. There was a distinctly October-y chill to the air, and it felt like it was going to rain.

Pancho and I walked into the store in silence. I got the impression he didn't want to talk, and even if he did, I wouldn't know what to say. I grabbed a basket once we got in, and we started wandering around the store looking for where they were putting Halloween candy. The florescent lighting just reminded me of the laundromat, and even though it probably wasn't the case anymore, it still felt like everyone was looking at us.

He still looked so down, like he'd rather be anywhere but with me at the store, and I couldn't blame him. I'd done a shit job of trying to make him feel better, probably. I sighed heavily, but Pancho pulled me out of my thoughts when he cleared his throat and tugged on my sleeve to get my attention. "There's the candy," he said, nodding his head in the direction of an aisle that was lined with plastic bags full of assorted brand name candies.

I told him he could pick out a few bags of whatever he wanted, and I got a mixed bag of Almond Joy and Mounds for myself and Bad Twin. We picked up a carton of milk, paid, and left the store.

Pancho sat in the passenger seat, unwrapping a roll of Smarties and eating them one by one. It had started raining outside, and he was watching the window wipers go back and forth across the windshield. He turned on the radio again, still not singing, and we drove home. I missed him so much. It hadn't even been an hour, probably, but I couldn't believe someone could be so awful to Pancho that he wouldn't even look at me or sing in the car.

He only spoke when we finally got home and I had pulled into the driveway. He was looking out the window wistfully, fussing with his Smarties wrapper, and mumbled, "I fucking love Smarties."

Hearing him finally say something was so good. Honestly, one silent car ride is enough to make you realize how much you miss listening to somebody talk.

***

I let Pancho pick what we had for dinner, and he chose Bad Twin's weird pizza. My brother, of course, was on board with that, and I was willing to endure it if it meant Pancho was feeling better. I gave him my toppings again, and he smiled at me as we ate. My heart was fluttering in my chest, but I was mostly just glad to see him feeling less upset, even if only by a bit. After dinner, he unwrapped another roll of Smarties and ate them one by one again, offering Bad Twin and me some as we watched Legally Blonde. Pancho smelled kind of fruity, like the candy he was eating, and it didn't help that halfway through the movie he decided to lean his head on my shoulder like he had the night before. His hair tickled, which was a good distraction from the fact that he was so warm and smelled so nice. He was still sad, I could tell, but it seemed like he was at least feeling a little better.

With about ten minutes left to go in the movie, Pancho got up without a word and went to go get ready for bed. The first thing I noticed was how cold I felt without him leaning on me, the second that I was _exhausted._ After a minute or so I joined him in the bathroom, and we brushed our teeth together just like always. It's the little things like that that are comforting.

Everything almost seemed normal again. Pancho was still quiet, but I really couldn't blame him. I changed into my pajamas, and he changed out of his jeans, like usual. The only major difference was that Pancho, instead of climbing into bed with me, started rolling out his sleeping bag.

I couldn't figure out why. He'd been sleeping in my bed since the very beginning, so why was he rolling out his sleeping bag now? He said something under his breath as he finished fluffing up his pillow, and I had to ask. "What? Pancho, wh- what's going on?" I stuttered.

"I said I'm sorry, it's," he mumbled, sniffing and wiping his nose on his hand, "You never even wanted me in your bed, anyway, I didn't even ask, I just-"

"Pancho, no, I-"

"Just, I should sleep on the floor, so I'm not bothering you anymore. To make up for sleeping in your bed, so you won't be annoyed with me. Sorry." He sighed and unzipped his sleeping bag. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I messed everything up."

"Hey, no, no," I said. "Pancho, if I wanted you to sleep on the floor, I would have made you sleep on the floor." I wanted to tell him that I would miss him, that I loved when he slept next to me because he was warm and smelled like mint toothpaste and the conditioner he used, and he was so cute with the way he curled up, and his soft snoring, that I didn't even care if he stole the sheets. But all I said was, "Come on, I really don't mind. I promise."

He picked up his pillow and clutched it to his chest. "You sure?" he asked.

"Yeah, 'course," I assured, rubbing at my eyes. I didn't _want_ him to sleep on the floor. In the beginning, sure, but now? I wasn't even sure if I could fall asleep at all without him lying next to me.

He ducked his head, but I could tell he was smiling as he set his pillow down and crawled under the covers. I was too tired to try not to blush; I just hoped he wouldn't notice. We laid in bed together quietly for a while before I leaned over to flick the light switch, and Pancho turned the lamp off. Neither of us said anything, and I realized just how much I missed him, even when he was lying right next to me. A month ago I would've been pissed that he'd managed to work himself so perfectly into my life, but as I drifted off to the sound of his snoring, I found myself smiling when I thought about everything we did together. No matter what happened between us, I couldn't imagine getting used to doing things without him.


	12. fine, great

October seemed to fly by. Somewhere along the line, Pancho made it back to his usual self again, and I was so relieved. I still felt awful about that day at the laundromat. God, that whole thing had been so fucked up. After that, I spent a lot of time wondering about what he and Mandy had been like as a couple, how often she belittled him like that, why she had even stuck with him so long if she hated him so much, how she had been able to just throw away that kind of relationship with him. Pancho was like the goddamn sun sometimes, I swear. He tried to toss Smarties in my mouth and ended up wasting an entire roll of candy because I couldn't catch any of them, and laughed when I tried to apologize. Another time, he had insisted on watching another horror movie because "it's _October,_ it's just _time_ to be spooky," and held onto me the whole time, even before the scary things started happening. It was impossible to not smile around him, and I spent all the time I could with him.

By the time the thirtieth rolled around, I was driving myself fucking crazy noticing every little thing about him that was cute, and not being able to do anything about it except try not to blush. There were so many times I wanted nothing more in the world than to hold him close and kiss him, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to remind myself that Pancho and I could never be anything outside of friends, as much as I wished that wasn't the case. It was, at the least, frustrating to think about. I was trying to not set myself up for future disappointment, but it wasn't working very well.

It was just the same things he'd already been doing; staring at me while I made eggs, leaning his head on my shoulder when we watched movies, calling me "pretty boy," ruffling his hair, his smirk. Fuck, almost everything he did made it hard for me focus on anything but him. And to add on to everything he'd already been doing, he started sleeping without a shirt at all some nights. As if it wasn't killing me enough already to sleep in the same bed with him, I could hardly even look at him when he was wearing nothing but his boxers. When I was at work, I missed him like crazy. I was stupidly, ridiculously attached to him, and I hated it.

I couldn't even talk to anyone about it. Pancho? Fuck no. Never. People at work? Of course not, they asked enough questions already. Clients? That would just be weird. The only person left that I could talk to was Bad Twin, and I almost never talked to him about anything anymore besides grocery shopping and what was on TV. We hadn't had an actual conversation in years, not since he flunked out of high school after one bad grade in his senior year. He was so close to graduating, too, and he threw it all away for a grade that didn't even matter. After that, he sat on the couch and ate shitty food, occasionally disappearing in his suit to god-knows-where. Bad Twin was more of a weird man-child that lived with me than my brother. He'd become unapproachable and distant, and I couldn't imagine ever talking to him about my feelings for Pancho.

On the night before Halloween, we were out of milk. Most of the time when we were "out of milk," we had two or more half-opened cartons in the fridge that everyone had forgotten about, but we had actually run out. I was exhausted from working all week and didn't feel like going to the store, and Bad Twin sure as hell wouldn't get off his ass, so Pancho volunteered to go pick up milk. I didn't want him to go for my own selfish reasons of wanting to be around him all the time, but I'd never say that to him. He went to the store, leaving Bad Twin and me alone together in the living room.

I was planning on going to my room to get some much-needed knitting time in while Pancho was gone, but as soon as we heard the door close, Bad Twin switched the TV off, lowered his sunglasses, and demanded, "Talk to me."

"Uh. What?" I raised my eyebrows at him. He never turned the TV off, hardly ever lowered his sunglasses, and he never wanted to fucking talk to me. The whole thing was weird as hell.

"Come on, man. What's up with you? What's happening?" he drawled, shifting into a more upright position. "We don't talk anymore, you're always gone, y'know?"

"Yeah, uh," I started, sitting down cross-legged on the floor by the couch. "Just work stuff, y'know. Pretty boring. Always busy," I said. It was so awkward, small-talking with him. I got the feeling there was something else he wanted out of this than to know how I was.

"Right, yeah, that's not what I mean," he replied. "There's other shit going on, I know there is, and I know you don't wanna talk about it."

"I don't, uh. What the hell are you talking about, man?" I stuttered. _Could he be talking about Pancho?_ I sure as hell hoped not. The last thing I needed was to talk to Bad Twin about my feelings for Pancho. It was weird enough having conversation with him at all, but that was a topic I definitely wanted to steer clear of.

My brother sighed, rolling his eyes at me, and adjusted his sunglasses. "You fucking _know_ what I'm talking about, man. Stop being a dumbass. You've been acting weird as hell lately, and you're gonna tell me why."

Sighing, I shifted uncomfortably. He had to be talking about Pancho. _Great._ "I..." I began, then swallowed. It's not like I'm a bad liar. My entire life balanced on the different lies I told different people, but bring in anything concerning Pancho, and I was immediately thrown off my game. "I don't, uh, what? I don't know. Why. I don't know why. And, I, I haven't been weird."

Bad Twin was unimpressed. "It's about your boy, isn't it?"

I froze. "My boy?"

"Do I have to fucking reiterate everything?" he muttered, sitting up all the way and looking at me over his sunglasses, the same way every teacher in grade school looked at me over the tops of their glasses when I disappointed them. "Your boy. Pancho."

"He's- he's not-" I didn't bother to finish. What was I gonna say? That Pancho wasn't "my boy?" That, at twenty six, he was more of a just a "guy" than a "boy?" Nothing I could have said would have made a difference. My face was red, and I knew it, but I didn't know what to do. There was no avoiding the topic or redirecting the conversation, not with Bad Twin. He had the dedication to do anything he wanted, just not the motivation to get off the couch and pursue something.

Bad Twin snorted. "But I'm right, aren't I?"

"Fuck you, man, fuck off," I protested, my voice higher-pitched than I wished it was. I was such a mess.

"Knew it," he teased. "I fucking knew it. You're so obvious about this shit, I swear-"

"Shut the fuck up." I paused to clear my throat, rolling my eyes at him. "Y'know what, fine, yeah, it's about Pancho," I admitted. "Don't fucking gloat about it, I know you are."

He totally was. "So," he smirked, "tell me about it."

"What, are you a teenage girl? For fuck's sake," I sighed.

"Shut up. Come on, you wanna talk about him. It's obvious you think about him all the time."

I groaned. Did I want to talk about Pancho? More than anything. He felt like the best thing that'd happened to me in years, but saying anything to my brother didn't sound like an appealing idea at all. "No," I said, "I don't wanna talk to you about him. There's no point, okay, he doesn't even like me like-"

"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me," he interrupted.

"What? What are you-"

"God, are you blind? Have you _seen,/em > he way he looks at you? How he fucking flirts with you all the time? He never shuts up about you either, really, it's ridiculous. You guys are so into each other."_

"He's not, we aren't, uh…" I trailed off.

Bad Twin shook his head like he was disappointed in me, and I didn't doubt it. "Look, man," he said, "just notify me when you guys are gonna fuck already so I can, like, leave the house or something."

I blanched. "What?" That was, hands down, the worst possible thing I could be thinking about at the moment. "Wh- when are we gonna _fuck?"_ As much as I wanted to know the answer to that question myself, I couldn't fucking believe Bad Twin had just asked me that. I forced fantasies out of my head and tried to get a grip back on the conversation. "We're not gonna fuck," I insisted.

"Yes, you are."

I gave him a look that I hoped was a glare, but was probably more of a flustered glance. "Why are you so adamant about this anyway?"

Bad Twin rolled his eyes again. He seemed a little exasperated, and I wondered why he didn't just drop the subject. I wish he would have, but no such luck. "'Cause I'm sick and tired of you guys acting like there's nothing going on between you," he explained, massaging his forehead with his thumb and index finger. "It's fucking exhausting, did you know that? And I know I'm right. It was the same thing with you and what's-his-face, however many years back that was."

Now there was a subject that could draw the flush away from my cheeks. Years ago, before I'd even started dealing cocaine, I'd met this guy. We talked, and we talked more, and before I knew it, I was head-over-heels in love with him. He was _perfect,_ and we just kind of clicked. We ended up dating, and eventually I found out he was into drugs and all that. At the time, I could have cared less, because I loved him and chose to be blind to all the shit he did. He ended up hooking me up with drugs and dealing and all that, and I didn't even notice that I had become a completely different person because he was the only important thing in my life. It had been the first serious relationship I'd ever had, and we were together for a couple of years. I moved in with him, and it seemed like we were happy. But then, I don't even know what went wrong, he just decided he was done or something. Next thing I knew, I was single and living with my brother. I'd been a mess for months. Nothing helped. I could barely eat or get a good night's sleep, I got fired from my job because the quality of my work had dropped so far, and it felt like I would never be able to be happy again. Eventually, I'd picked myself up and gotten a new job, managed to smother my lingering feelings for him, and done my best to move on with my life. I'd been able to forget about all of that for a while until my stupid-ass brother had to go and bring it all up again. To say the least, having to think about all of that fucked-up shit was upsetting. I narrowed my eyes, clenching my jaw. "C'mon, man, it's not the same."

"Yes it is," Bad Twin argued, pushing his sunglasses back up, "you two were lusting over each other for months and you refused to talk about it, even though you were both hella obvious as fuck. Same thing."

"No it's not," I denied, starting to get even more worked up, "It's not like that. Pancho's different. Have you even _seen_ his smile? God, it's the most beautiful thing in the world. And he actually cares about other people. Did you know that he walked six miles to bring me soup at lunch one time? Six fucking miles. That's a lot. I actually feel like a semi-decent human being when I'm around him. And if the way he buttons his shirts wrong and smells like mint all the time isn't enough, he snores when he sleeps, like, really quietly, and I swear to god, it's-" I broke off, realizing I had said way too much. _God damn me._ I was blushing, and I knew it. Fuck, it didn't even matter anymore. I never should've agreed to talk to Bad Twin about my feelings. I wouldn't put it past him to mention something to Pancho while I was away, now that he knew how I felt. I was screwed.

It looked like Bad Twin was smirking at first, like the ass he was, but glancing at him a second time, I could have sworn I actually saw him _smiling._ The expression faded, leaving behind his typical straight-faced scowl. "Nah, I guess you're right," he admitted, "it's not the same." He paused, shaking his head. "I've never heard you talk about anyone else like you talk about your boy."

"He's, uh, he's not-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. 's not my fault you're basically in love."

_What?_ "No, no. I just, I like him a lot, is all," I said, "and maybe later, or something, y'know, but uh, not yet. I'm not in love with Pancho."

Bad Twin was probably rolling his eyes under his sunglasses, but he let me off easy that time, with a sarcastic, "Sure."

I sighed. Pancho would be home any minute, and my face still felt warm. "Bad Twin?" I began.

"Yeah, 'sup?"

"Please don't say anything to him?"

"Nah, I won't."

I almost let out a sigh of relief. It'd be great if he kept that promise. Spacing out, I started thinking about what he'd said. Was I in love with Pancho? It didn't feel like it. Not yet, at least. I could see it going as far as me loving him later, but in the moment, I wasn't in love with him. I really, really fucking liked him, though. And I cared about him a lot, and I wanted to kiss him and run my hands through his hair and fix his offset buttons for him and pull him close at night in bed and hold his hand, but love? Love didn't seem like the right word yet.

"Where even is Pancho?" Bad Twin sat up, interrupting my stream of thought. "Can't take that long to get milk, can it?"

"Yeah, I dunno man. He is Pancho," I replied.

Just then, the door opened, and I could hear Pancho's snow boots coming down the stairs. "I'm back!" He rushed into the living room, shoes stomping on the floor. "I thought I heard my name, are you guys talking about me?" He was grinning, eyebrows raised, hair and clothes damp from the rain outside.

I glanced at Bad Twin, half-expecting him to say everything I'd just asked him not to, but he just shrugged and turned the TV back on. He wasn't doing anything to help me out, though. My mind was racing, and I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times before I was finally able to stutter out, "Oh, um, no, uh, we were just saying you've been gone for awhile." It wasn't a lie, that's what we'd said right before he had gotten back, but most of the talking we'd done about him, I hoped he'd never know about. "You're back now, though, so it's all good!" I laughed nervously, knowing how stupid I sounded without being able to do anything about it besides clear my throat and change the subject. "So, um, what do you want for dinner?"

Pancho thought for a second, running a hand through his hair and shifting his weight from foot to foot. It was almost like he hadn't even noticed that I'd sloppily diverted the conversation."I don't know," he said, "It's Bad Twin's turn to pick." He glanced at my brother, who was back to lounging on the couch and not saying anything, before sitting down next to me, still holding the carton of milk, and leaned on my shoulder like he had taken to doing. He was cold and his hair was still dripping a bit from the rain, and I had to fold my arms together so I didn't pull him closer and try to warm him up. "Sorry I took so long," he apologized, "The store was crowded, and it started to rain, but at least I got the milk!"

"That's okay," I said. "Thanks for getting the milk. You-" I paused for a second, turning to look at him. "You're all wet, you're getting your wet hair all over my shirt, man," I complained, in an attempt to seem just as nonchalant as I wasn't. _Fuck,_ though, he looked so cute with his hair all wet and hanging in his face.

Pancho pressed his head harder against my shoulder, like he was trying to use me as a towel. I wanted to focus on how much of a jerk he was being, but all I could think was that he was so adorable with the way he was giggling. "Is my hair dry now?" he asked, grinning up at me.

I rolled my eyes, trying to dismiss my thoughts. "Yeah, um. Dinner." I changed the subject again, looking over at Bad Twin hesitantly. "What do you want?"

He sighed, then turned to me and answered, "Let's get some fucking Thai food. I could kill for some Pad Thai right about now."

Pancho's eyes lit up. "Fuck yeah, sticky rice. Are we getting delivery?"

"Yeah, it's too wet to go out," I decided. "I'll go order. Same thing as last time?"

Bad Twin and Pancho nodded in response, and I got up to get the phone. "You have to promise to try not to make such a mess with the sticky rice, Pancho," I called back over my shoulder.

"I'll be careful this time." He was still beaming at me, eyes bright as ever, so contagious that I was smiling before I even realized it. There was nothing I could do to help it, and I wasn't sure if I could last another day without kissing him.

***

I woke up to Pancho's arm sprawled across my chest, his slow, sleepy breath warm on my skin. I might've been able to just push him off and try to pretend like nothing happened if he'd decided to wear a shirt to bed, but he hadn't. I'd only just woken up, but I was already blushing. Sighing, I blinked sleep out of my eyes, looking down at the soft curve of his arm connecting to his bare shoulders, his collarbone, the contrast of his summery tan skin against his dark hair. Everything about him felt so soft in the morning. I thought back to the dream I'd had back at the beginning of the month, how he'd slowly stirred awake and kissed me, and we'd kissed again and again, and everything had been perfect. I was starting to get jealous of that dream. I wanted it to happen so badly, but I knew it wouldn't. Instead, Pancho just twitched in his sleep. I sighed again, and fought the urge to let myself look any lower than his shoulders. It was hard not to; the morning light filtering through the blinds made his skin glow, and god dammit, he looked so gorgeous.

I decided it would be better for my state of mind if I put myself in a different room than him and started breakfast or something. Trying to move so as to avoid waking up Pancho, I managed to sit up, but before I could get out of bed I heard a yawn from beside me. When I glanced over, Pancho was looking at me with his eyes half-open.

"Where are you going?" he mumbled, closing his eyes again. I could barely tell what he was saying. He sounded so groggy and was muffled by a pillow, so it took me a couple of seconds to answer.

"Oh, um. Shit, sorry for waking you up," I apologized, trying not to smile too much at his sleepy voice and messy bedhead, "I was just gonna go start breakfast."

He sniffed, and fumbled for my arm, finally grabbing my wrist and trying to pull me back down. I tensed up a bit at the feeling of electricity on my skin where he was holding my arm, but he didn't seem to notice. "No, come back to bed," he protested feebly, "You don't need to make breakfast yet." When I didn't make any move at first to lie back down, he tugged on my arm again. "Come back."

I gave in, sinking back down into bed. It was hard to make it seem like I was indifferent, like I wanted to make breakfast, when I couldn't believe he'd just asked me to come back to bed, and the butterflies in my stomach were getting out of control. I was definitely failing at attempting to seem neutral; it was a good thing he was still half-asleep. With no intention of going back to sleep, I laid back down, and Pancho shifted so that his head was resting on my shoulder. I hoped he couldn't hear my heartbeat speed up, that he couldn't tell how tense I was. He was Pancho, Pancho who I was hopelessly enamored with, Pancho who wasn't wearing a shirt and was so goddamn hot, Pancho who was glancing up at me through half-lidded eyes, yawning, looking as perfect as ever. It was driving me crazy not to wrap my arms around his waist, pull him close, and breathe in the scent of his skin, the conditioner he always put in his hair, everything about him. But I didn't. Instead, I whispered, "Happy Halloween."

"Oh, yeah," Pancho yawned. "Happy Halloween to you, too."

Trying to keep the conversation going, I said, "Do you even have any of that candy left, or did you eat it all?"

"Mm." He rubbed at his eyes, blinking a couple of times before opening them. "Yeah, I think I have another bag left."

I laughed, still trying to be quiet. It was nice, just the two of us, lying in bed together without even a sound from Bad Twin in the living room. I could almost pretend things were the way I wished they were, but I wouldn't let myself. I didn't want to get up and make breakfast. I wanted to lay in bed with him the whole day, wake up slow.

Pancho rustled the covers around with his feet, drawing his knees closer to his chest. He was even closer than before, and I could feel how warm he was.

I couldn't lay in bed with him any longer than that without risking my sanity. I sat up a little, turned to him, and asked, "Should I make breakfast now?"

He scrunched up his face and pulled the covers farther up over us. "Come on, pretty boy, there's no need to rush. We could stay in bed all day if we wanted. That's what Saturdays are for."

I was blushing, I couldn't think of anything else to say, and he was just making everything worse. "I- uh-"

Pancho laughed and pushed his forehead into my shoulder. My breath hitched. How could he not realize what a mess he made me? "Am I that bad?" he asked, "You just can't spend another second with me?" When I looked down at him, he was looking up at me like he wanted to smirk but was too tired, so it came out as more of a lopsided smile. It was obvious he was still drowsy, his eyes unfocused and hazy, his smile a little vague.

I swallowed. It was true. I couldn't spend another second with him, at least when we were this close, but it was only because he made my head spin so much and I just wanted to kiss him, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I did something really stupid. The only thing I could do at the moment was lie back down, tell him that he wasn't bad at all, and wait for him to get hungry enough to want breakfast.


	13. alone together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here is thirteen! it took forever but here it is.

I'd decided I hated Halloween. Not because of the holiday itself, but because Pancho was so damn sad about not doing anything to celebrate that he was making everyone else miserable, too. He'd been sulking all day, complaining that we should've at least bought more candy, if not decorated the whole house. It was exhausting. I mean, sure, I felt terrible at first. Seeing him sad always made me sad, too, but it got old after listening to him whine all day. We were both bored out of our minds, sitting at the table for a few minutes after we finished a late dinner. "What do you wanna do?" I asked.

"I dunno, man, what do _you_ wanna do?" It was about the fiftieth time I'd heard Pancho say that that day.

I sighed. "Really? Come on, don't do that. Just tell me what you wanna do. You've been moping around the house all day."

"Ugh, I don't fucking know, man,"Pancho groaned, "There's nothing to do. We already ate dinner."

I hated to admit it, but he was right."Yeah. We could go see what Bad Twin's watching?" He'd had the TV turned to various obnoxious Halloween movies all day, but there might've been some kind of miracle that caused him to switch.

"We should do that, yeah! I saw an ad for a Ghostbusters marathon earlier this week. I wanna see if I can get him to let me watch it."

"Good luck with that," I muttered under my breath, getting up out of my chair. Pancho was following me, as always, and I was happy to see him at least a little bit excited at the prospect of a Ghostbusters marathon. I knew Bad Twin wouldn't turn the TV, and I figured Pancho knew that too, but he was desperate enough to ask.

We'd spent a considerable portion of the day lying in bed, Pancho shifting around and turning me down every time I offered to make breakfast. Eventually, though, I got hungry, and he sighed but finally agreed to get up so I could fix some lunch. After lunch we watched part of some Halloween movie with Bad Twin but ended up going on a walk. Once we got back, though, there wasn't much else to do, and it didn't take Pancho long to get bored of everything. He ate more of his Halloween candy, sorting out the M&M's in the Fun Size bags by color and dividing them evenly between us, occasionally asking me to help him pull caramel out of his hair. I don't know how he managed to get caramel in his hair, but it happened more than once before it was time to start dinner.

Bad Twin was glued to another one of his weird movies when we walked into the living room. Pancho studied the TV for a second, glanced at me with his eyebrows raised, and turned to my brother. "Hey, Bad Twin," he began, raising his voice a little to be heard over the soundtrack. When he didn't get a response, he tried again, louder. I sighed and leaned against the wall. Getting Bad Twin to change the channel would be a miracle. Pancho had to repeat himself multiple times before my brother even looked up from his movie.

"What the fuck, man," Bad Twin complained, "What's so important you gotta interrupt Strictly Ballroom, huh?" When Pancho took a second to answer him, he kept talking. "Nothing, that's what. Leave me the fuck alone, this movie is a goddamn masterpiece."

Watching one of Bad Twin's obnoxious movies didn't sound appealing at all. Sighing, I headed for my bedroom, not even bothering to wait for Pancho. I should have known he was following me like he always did, but I almost closed the door on him. He stuck his foot through the frame just in time, pushing the door open to let himself in.

I collapsed onto the bed, wishing not for the first time that he would leave me alone so I could knit, or at least kiss me to distract me from how boring everything was. He looked just about as bored as I felt, if not downright depressed. I was tired of doing nothing, and tired of him being sad. "Look, man,"I said, "I don't know what's up, but you're obviously sad or something. I'm sorry about Halloween, but is there some way I can make this up to you? 'Cause I don't want you to be sad."

Pancho sat down cross-legged on the floor, looking down at his hands. After a few seconds, he replied, "I don't know, man." He paused again, sighed, and looked up at me."Y'know what, let's just fucking get high."

I blinked, surprised. Had he really just suggested that? Did he remember how miserable he'd been while he was going through withdrawals? I'd have thought he would have. "That's a terrible idea, Pancho. We're finally off that shit, it's bad enough that I deal it. I'm always fucking miserable coming down, anyway. We're not gonna do lines just because you're bored."

He groaned, throwing his head back in exasperation. "Come on. I'll even pay you back if you want me to, just a couple lines, man, I-"

"Nah, man," I interrupted, "I'm not selling you coke again. I don't deal to, um, friends." I looked down, trying not to wince at how hard it was for me to call him my "friend."

"Sweet, give it to me for free. Even better."

I ran a hand through my hair. "What the hell, Pancho? Where'd this even come from, anyway? You've been clean for, like, two months, why now?"

"I don't know, and I don't fucking care, either. Just give me the coke, pretty boy."

I studied him, trying to figure out what made him think of getting high was an option, and a good one at that. Did I want to do lines? Not really. I was finally off that stuff, and I wanted to stay off it. Pancho, too. I'd fucked up his life before, starting when I got him hooked, and I didn't want to run the risk of ruining things for him again. It was hard to read his expression as he sat there on the carpet, switching between glancing at his hands and back up at me. He looked a little confused, like he didn't even know why he was suggesting it, but also bored and frustrated. I still felt bad for him, of course, but I also wanted to know what had him so down. I mean, I knew he was disappointed about not doing anything for Halloween, but there had to be something more. Usually he'd at least be able to think of something to do besides get high. "No, come on," I sighed, "There's gotta be something else you wanna do."

Pancho shifted around, fidgeting with the buttons on his shirt. He had, for once, buttoned it up the right way, but half the collar was sticking up while the rest was folded down, and I wondered if there was any way he could wear that salmon-colored shirt without part of it being messed up. When I thought he was gonna suggest an alternative, he opened his mouth, closed it again, and shook his head. "Nope." Before I could say anything else, he continued, "Just a couple of lines, man, and then we'll quit for real. And we can be miserable together coming down. And at least we won't be bored anymore."

He wasn't gonna change his mind, that was evident. I could roll my eyes and deny him all I wanted, but it wouldn't be getting anywhere. "Y'know what," I began, knowing I was going to regret everything, "fine. Fuck you. Let's get high."

***

I felt great. If I wasn't head-over-heels for Pancho enough already, it was even worse after doing lines with him, with the way he was so fucking gorgeous, his eyes wide, dilated. He was almost glowing, and I couldn't tell whether the warmth in my chest was from the coke or the way he made me feel. I didn't think it was possible for him to be any more talkative, but he _was,_ and I hung on to every word he said. Who knows what we talked about, but it was like he wasn't even trying not to be obvious about flirting with me. I really couldn't have picked a better time to snort a couple of rails, because for the first time since the dream, I could talk to him without stumbling over every word I said. I'd forgotten how good all of it felt, and it was even better with him. The bitter taste in the back of my throat was cloying, but I hardly noticed it when my mouth was moving faster than I remembered it could. I felt numb, but I was finally thinking straight, even if I was fucked up. And whether it was Pancho or the snow, I felt fucking great.

We were sitting on my bed, talking about god-knows-what, but it seemed fascinating at the time. He'd never seemed sweeter, doing that thing he did where he kept scooting closer and closer until he was practically on top of me. He was always so subtle about that, slower and more discreet than I would've expected of him. It drove me crazy, everything about him did. Pancho really wasn't making it easy for me to keep myself from kissing him. The electricity prickling through my fingertips wanted me to put a hand on the back of his neck and pull him down, and I kept just _almost_ giving in. It would be so easy, too. We were already sitting so close, his hand on my shoulder and fiddling with the fabric of my shirt as we talked, but something stopped me every time, even though it almost hurt to not be holding him then. I wanted him like you want coke when you're coming down. You know you shouldn't want it, but nothing in the world sounds better and it aches to fight it. I forced myself to ignore the feeling, and it went away just a little.

Pancho was beaming at me as we sat there, and if my mind hadn't been so clear I would have been blushing like crazy, the way I always did when he was grinning like that. But this time I was able to just smile back, and he was shining so bright, every second I looked at him was the new best second of my life. There was not one thing about him that didn't seem perfect as he sat there, sniffing every so often as we talked on and on. The drip in my throat was fucking annoying, but the space around us felt warm, like there was energy buzzing on my skin. He was still playing with my shirt, and he was so focused on me, and I couldn't stand it. Everything I'd been feeling about him for the past months, especially ever since the dream, in addition to the coke, was driving me crazy. The need to kiss him resurfaced, and with him so close to me, it was _worse_ than the feeling of needing more blow after the high started to wear off.

For a second, he stopped talking about everything I didn't remember, and looked down at the hand that was messing with my shirt, tilting his head to the side. "Y'know, pretty boy," he said, "I like cocaine. But I like you a whole lot more."

I couldn't fucking take it anymore. That's the only thing I remember him saying on the high, and you could say it sent me over the edge. I felt myself acting before I could stop, but I'm not sure if I would have done anything different if I _had_ been able to. Before I knew what I was doing, I had a hand on the back of his neck and I was leaning in.

I felt him hesitate for a fraction of a second before he tilted his head, deepening the kiss, and I was _kissing Pancho,_ and he was kissing me, and all the holding back had been so worth it. The feeling of his lips pressed against mine was a better euphoria than the high, warm and soft and everything I'd been dreaming of and _more,_ god, so much fucking more. The real thing was a million times better than the fantasy when it came to kissing him. The candy he'd been eating all day made him sweet, like chocolate, and I couldn't think of a single thing that tasted as good as he did. Our mouths moved together like they were made to, and fuck, he was kissing me back. I could feel him leaning into me, and I never wanted to do anything else. It felt perfect, and if I didn't have to breathe, I would've stayed like that with him for hours. But I had to come up for air at some point.

I pulled away, and Pancho was leaning his forehead against mine, locking eyes with me before leaning in again, quick and messy, so hard that I had to put a hand down on the bed to catch myself. It was endearingly sloppy; he was giggling in between breaths and I could feel his smile. I tilted my head a little more to the side, trying to fix our position so that our noses weren't smashed together, but he had the same idea. What happened between the first kiss and the second, I didn't know, but he was clumsy, I was reckless, and I wanted more.

Neither of us had any idea how to kiss the other, but it sure as hell didn't stop us. He felt more addictive than the coke, his voice hushed, mumbling to me in between pressing his lips against mine. Something along the lines of "if you- we- wait, fuck," maybe. I don't remember what he said. I just remember the way he made me feel.

After a couple minutes of bumping noses, mumbling, laughing, we got the hang of kissing each other. Once we figured it out, god, he was so good. I loved the way we fit together, the way his tongue felt against mine, how one of his hands was on my waist, the other behind my head, pulling me close. My head was spinning but I was _finally_ tangling my fingers in his hair, feeling him pressed up against me, trying to figure out which of our heartbeats was pounding faster because I could feel them both. There was this feeling in my chest that I hadn't felt for a long time, and the world could have been revolving around us. And if it wasn't, then it sure as hell should have been, because Pancho was the most important thing on Earth.

Everything faded away until it was just the two of us, breaths fluttery and quick, _kissing_ like I never thought we would. All the waiting, the awkward and stuttering and blushing, all of the not knowing what to do or say around him, the thinking that I'd fucked everything up, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat for this. He felt like a breath of fresh air and a sigh of relief all at once, and he gave me chills and made warmth pool in my stomach. He made me feel so many different things all at once I couldn't even name them all, but I knew they all felt good.

It was impossible to get enough of Pancho. I couldn't get over the way he tasted, especially with the chocolate on his lips, and I couldn't get over how secure and sure he felt, and I wanted more. No, I _needed_ more or I was going to fucking explode. My skin was heating up and it felt too hot in my room, but I didn't want to ever leave. I could feel him tugging on the hem of my shirt, and there was no way I could continue to keep myself together. There was so little between us, but I was itching for less. If I'm going to be honest, I was probably making all sorts of embarrassing sounds I can't remember, and with the supercharged emotions running through me, it was more than likely. Impulsively, desperately, I dropped a hand to the buttons on his shirt, fiddling with the top one. There was nothing in the whole god damn world that I wanted more than to undo that button, and then all of them.

I struggled with the button for a couple seconds before it finally came undone, and I felt Pancho's breath hitch against my lips. His hands reached down and brushed against mine, rushing to undo each button. I leaned my forehead against his, looking down at his bare chest, his torso, his perfect tan skin, everything I hadn't let myself enjoy before. Sure, I'd seen him without a shirt, but this was _much_ different. I slid my hands up onto his shoulders, feeling how smooth his skin was, pushing the shirt off partway. He shrugged it off, finishing the job, and pushed me down onto the bed. The way he looked silhouetted against the ceiling brought back memories of almost kissing him on the couch on his birthday. This time, though, there was nothing stopping me from pulling him down and running my hands through his hair. I kissed him, just to feel his lips on mine, his tongue, his teeth, just because even when we were already kissing, I wanted more.

He was biting on my bottom lip, soft, sending chills down my spine. I pulled away, glancing at his eyelids fluttering as I kissed the corner of his mouth, his cheek, along his jaw until I was at his neck. I was breathing in the scent of his soap and conditioner; his hand was grazing my collarbone, fumbling with the buttons on my shirt. The top button came undone just as I pressed my lips against his neck. Pancho undid the rest of the buttons, and I tried not to shudder when he got down to the last one, with not much success. I shrugged the shirt off and kissed him hard, feeling the warmth of his skin as I pressed my hands against his chest.

He pinned me to the mattress, kissing me over and over again, my lips, my neck, my shoulders, all over my chest. No doubt, I was a fucking mess, probably sighing and moaning into him as he ran his hands over my skin. His hands, god, he was good with his hands. Not cold, not hot, but all over me. Like he knew exactly what he was doing, but still clumsy, tracing my jawline, ghosting across the back of my neck, pressed up against my chest. I kept realizing those were Pancho's fingertips, clouding my vision and hitching my breath, and all I wanted was to kiss him harder, deeper, more than I already was. I wanted to get closer, wanted him as close as we could get.

Pancho's hand went down to the waistband of my jeans, tucking his fingers through the belt loops. I felt light-headed, unable to keep myself from shivering as he tugged my jeans down, bit by bit. The contact was feverish, and fucking perfect. Everything about him, his smooth, soft skin, the way he fumbled while he pulled on my jeans, the way his smile felt, it was all perfect. I couldn't believe that earlier that day I'd decided I hated Halloween, because in the course of an evening, it had turned into the best day of the year.


End file.
